F1: The battle for the middle zone and the millions of dollars
The last Grand Prix of the season defines the Constructors’ World Championship, and each point means millions of dollars
During the first laps of the Qatar Grand Prix the Danish Kevin Magnussen (haas), the Frenchman Pierre Gasly (Alpine) and the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (R.B.) starred in an intense battle on the track, which included accusations on the radio and a couple of spectacular overtakes on the Asian.
The duel was for just two points, Tsunoda was ninth, Magnussen followed him and Gasly was outside the Top 10. The position had a great value and in the end the Dane left with that pair of units, but the Frenchman with 10 when finishing fifth and the Japanese with empty hands in the middle of a dispute that could cost up to 20 million dollars.
With the drivers’ title decided from the stop in Las Vegas, with the consecration for the fourth consecutive time of the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull), attention is focused on the builders, where there is still no winner.
McLaren will reach the close in Abu Dhabi with a 21-point lead over Ferrariin a test in which any team could collect up to 44, if its drivers make 1-2 and also take the fastest lap on the Yas Marina circuit.
The still monarch Red Bull is out of consideration and will be third in the table, while mercedes With 446 units it will be fourth. Aston Martin will be fifth with 92, far from the 280 with which it achieved it in the previous season of the Great Circus.
However, sixth position is what is at stake because Alpine has 59 points, followed by Haas with 54 and even RB with 46. Ninth place will go to Williams, while Sauber He will occupy the bottom, although he finally managed to add in Lusail with the eighth place of the Chinese Guanyu Zhou.
However, the fight that Magnussen, Gasly and Tsunoda staged not only had as a background those two points of distance, but also the difference between being sixth or eighth in the championship, which can represent up to $20 million difference in budget for 2025.
The highest category awards financial prizes to companies according to their classification at the end of each campaign, with the largest amount for the champion and the smallest for the one who placed tenth, so each place represents a different sum.
According to estimates for this season, after what happened in 2023, Red Bull obtained 140 million dollars for the teams title, while the second was Mercedes (131 million dollars), the third Ferrari (122 million dollars) and the last Haas was It took only 60 million dollars.
The places from sixth to eighth, for which Alpine, Haas and RB are now fighting, earned 95 million dollars, 87 and 78, respectively; That is, a difference of 17 million, although the rewards are expected to increase next year, so the distance could be two dozen.
The team that now has the advantage among those three is Alpine, which arrived in Qatar as seventh with 49 points, 50 for Haas and 46 for RB. With Gasly’s ten, he now leads that group, and although the Americans added four (two from the German Nico Hülkenberg in the Sprint and the pair from Magnussen in the race), the second Red Bull squad could not advance.
A position with three candidates
In Abu Dhabi, the French brand will start at the front, an unexpected situation at the beginning of the calendar because it did not have a car within the Top 10 in the first five dates, which caused changes at management level, including the return of Flavio Briatore as adviser.
In the sixth event of the season, in Miami, the first point came through the Frenchman Esteban Ocon, who was tenth. Upon landing in Europe the internal situation improved, with consecutive Top 10s in Monaco, Canada (on a trip to America), Spain and Austria, before going blank in Great Britain and Hungary.
In Belgium, Ocon was ninth and the institution went into the holidays in eighth place, with 11 units and 16 behind the seventh Haas. On the return it was Gasly who added another pair and then the trip to America changed fortunes because Pierre was tenth in Mexico and the rain in Sao Paulo gave him a double podium, with Esteban as second and his teammate third, only behind Verstappen for a haul of 33 points that propelled them from ninth place in the table to sixth.
Gasly’s result in Qatar only confirmed the French driver’s great moment at the end of the campaign and increased Alpine’s chances of repeating the position achieved in 2023, although with half the units.
The candidate to take it from him is Haas, who with the departure of Guenther Steiner As director, he has left the bottom of the classification to be seventh, derived from a great start to the campaign with Top 10 in Saudi Arabia, Australia (for both drivers) and China, although he spent the next five events without scoring.
In Austria Hülkenberg was sixth and Magnussen eighth, the German repeated the result in Silverstone and even the British Oliver Bearman contributed as a replacement for the Dane in Azerbaijan.
In the last eight races, the Americans have been able to finish in the Top 10 in all of them except Sao Paulo, to show that the team has gained consistency and has left its problems behind, although in 2025 those benefits will be enjoyed by Bearman and Ocon .
The other contender is RB, who has had his own roller coaster because after a bad start in the first two dates, Tsunoda had five Top 10s in the next six dates and his partner, the Australian Daniel Ricciardo, took over in two of the dates. next three, with more points before the holidays. After the summer break, those from Faenza did not find the key and that caused them to replace Ricciardo after Singapore with the New Zealander Liam Lawson, who was ninth in Austin and in Sao Paulo, when Tsunoda also added again, as seventh, and then as ninth in Las Vegas. After 18 Grand Prix, RB was sixth in the standings, but towards the end of the campaign he is in eighth, 13 points behind Alpine and in a complicated situation, beyond the consistency of Tsunoda and the aggressiveness of Lawson, who will try to surprise in Abu Dhabi. “In terms of our aspirations in the championship, it is clear that, although we have taken steps forward in recent races, it coincided with our rivals for sixth place doing the same, with our former driver Pierre Gasly leaving us without a chance in Qatar,” director Laurent Mekies resigned. These are the arguments with which the three candidates will arrive at the same place, which, in addition to money, decides how much time they will be able to spend in the simulator and their location in the pit area by 2025, the year before the big change in engine rules. , scheduled for 2026. The battle in Abu Dhabi will be tough in the middle of the grid, with six cars (with Australian rookie Jack Doohan replacing Ocon in Alpine) looking to finish as high as possible because a few units can make the difference between being sixth or eighth, but above all between getting around 100 million dollars or eighty.
