The excitement of the championship in Formula 1 continues at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The excitement of Formula 1, which started in Bahrain on March 28, will end with the 22nd race, Yas Marina, and the champion will be determined.
As it is known, in Formula 1, it will be enough for both Verstappen and Hamilton to complete the race in front of each other in order to become champions. As a matter of fact, if both drivers are out of the race (if the FIA does not impose a penalty), Max Verstappen will have declared the championship due to the number of wins. Here are the developments during the week before the Yas Marina Race, which will determine the champion of the season. . .
Renovated track smiles at Mercedes
Many people say that Yas Marina has transformed into a Mercedes track with its renewed state. Lewis Hamilton also explained that the new version of the track is much more fun.
Masi announces that he will not hesitate to delete points
Mercedes and Red Bull team bosses who made gentlemanly statements after Masi’s statement
F1 fans may have the idea that Verstappen could deliberately bump into Hamilton in Sunday’s race to win the title. While some F1 fans say it’s possible, a deliberate collision could result in a tough bill to pay for both Verstappen and Red Bull.
As a matter of fact, due to these allegations, Championship Director Michael Masi also announced that they would not hesitate to use the “point deletion penalty” in case of an unsportsmanlike act.
Things may change color if Hamilton gets reprimanded.
If Lewis Hamilton, who was condemned for the second time with the Nikita Mazepin incident in Saudi Arabia, gets reprimanded in any way at Yas Marina; A 10-place grid penalty awaits him for his 3rd reprimand.
Special moments at Yas Marina
The McLaren team will compete with a special design for Yas Marina. It was announced that this special design was created with the “Driven by Change” campaign.
Williams’ British driver, George Russsel, has signed a contract with Mercedes for next year. This will be Valtteri Bottas’ last race with Mercedes and George Russell’s with Williams. It will be the last race of the old Wolf Kimi Räikkönen in F1.
Also, as it is Räikkönen’s last race, teammate Antonio Giovinazzi will race in a special helmet. In the design of the helmet, references were made to the helmet design that Kimi used during his championship period in 2007, and the text Thanks Kimi was added.
1st session of training tours
Specially designed McLaren vehicle
Red Bull’s Dutch driver Max Verstappen was ahead in the first training session at Yas Marina. Bottas, Hamilton and Perez followed the ranking; Except for a few blockages by Sainz, nothing significant happened in the session.
2nd session of training tours
Lewis Hamilton, the British driver of Mercedes, completed the second session of the training session in the first place; Ocon, Bottas, Verstappen and Perez rounded out the top five.
3rd session of training tours
Lewis Hamilton was leading again in the last training session at Yas Marina; Verstappen, Bottas and Perez made the top four spots. In this session, Hamilton went off the track several times due to a tire lock; Verstappen, on the other hand, went to the rear wing change due to balance problems. Just as with Hamilton’s exhaust change, Verstappen was not penalized for the wing change. Kimi Räikkönen had a minor accident in this session.
Qualifying Session 1 (Q1): Old Wolf qualified for the last time
In Q1, the first four rows were Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen and Perez; Nicholas Latifi, Mr. Saturday (Russell), who raced his last race with Williams, Old Wolf Kimi Räikkönen, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, who raced the last race of his 20-year career, were eliminated in the first session.
6 minutes before the end of the session, Mick Schumacher hit the pontoon and Lando Norris made contact with the red flag and the session was interrupted for 1 minute.
Qualifying Session 2 (Q2): The fateful moment for Red Bull
In the second division, the Red Bulls took the first two places (Verstappen and Perez); Hamilton was third and Bottas was sixth. Eliminated names were Alonso, Gasly, Stroll, Giovinazzi and Vettel.
In his first attempt this session, Max Verstappen went off the track and had a severe burn on his tires. Vettel and Tsunoda also caused us to see a short-lived yellow flag. Since Verstappen does not have zero set tires as a medium compound, it was eagerly awaited what decision Red Bull would take after burnt tyres. After a short break, Max Verstappen put on a new set of soft tyres, and went back to the track. In addition, Perez, who was in the elimination hoop, took the track with soft tires.
With these decisions, it became clear that Verstappen will start the race tomorrow on soft tyres. In addition, Vettel and Alonso reacted particularly harshly due to the traffic in the last seconds of the session.
Qualifying Round 3 (Q3): Perez sacrifices himself for the team
In this session, with Sergio Perez’s air lane support, Max Verstappen made a great lap, outpacing Lewis Hamilton by more than half a second on his first try. Hamilton narrowed the lead to 0.37 seconds on his last try, but that wasn’t enough and Verstappen went first.
The last race of the season, which will start tomorrow at 16 CET, and the race where the champion will be determined, while Verstappen starts on the first line; Hamilton, Norris, Perez, Sainz and Bottas will follow.
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