Welcome back to race week… again. As a fan, I love triple headers but even I am feeling a little overwhelmed with the amount of content to keep up with. I can’t even imagine how all of the teams are feeling hopping on a plane from Brazil straight to Qatar.
This race weekend is a little different. We are headed to Losail Circuit, which has never hosted Formula 1 before. This means the teams are headed into this weekend somewhat blind, with none of the data and experience that they normally use to prepare for a race weekend. There are two exceptions with Nikita Mazepin and Sergio Perez having raced here previously in their junior careers. However, since 2007, the Losail circuit has hosted the opening race of the MotoGP championship. Many of the drivers on the grid are avid MotoGP fans so they will no doubt be familiar with the circuit from this event.
Normally when I am preparing a preview I watch past races, on boards and team radios. However, my preparation for this weekend has been a little different. Most of the insight available comes from the teams and drivers themselves. While listening to the drivers' press conferences this Thursday, I put together my top 5 stories to watch out for in the upcoming sessions.
Alpine vs Alpha Tauri Rages on
This fierce battle in the midfield is as intense as ever, with both teams dead tied on points going into the Qatar Grand Prix. While it appears Alpha Tauri have the fastest package overall, Pierre Gasly says that they “can’t be too confident” considering Alpine’s consistent point-scoring finishes. However, Alpine are struggling to find an answer to the pace of their rivals, with Fernando Alonso claiming they “have no answer” to the drop off of pace the team have seen since Austin.
Track Limit Drama
We have heard many teams and drivers partake in their fair share of complaining to the FIA about track limits, with the rules being consistently inconsistent this season. Nicholas Latifi said that “track limits will be a bit of a thing here because there are so many run-off areas.” The FIA has confirmed that they will be policing track limits at 5 corners this race weekend. These strict measures combined with the new terrain for drivers means we will likely see some deleted track times this weekend.
Is The ‘Best of the Rest’ Fight Over?
Daniel Ricciardo said that McLaren has “done well to keep up the fight till now”. The general messaging from the McLaren side is that Ferrari has had the pace and performance since the beginning of the season. However, in recent races, Ferrari has been able to consistently capitalise with both cars in the top end of the points while McLaren has had some fumbles and bad luck that means they've barely scored in the last 3 races. On his positioning in the championships, Charles Leclerc said, “5th in the drivers won’t change my life,” but P3 in the constructors is “very important, 3rd place in constructors is more important than 5th place in the drivers” proving the motivation is still there for Ferrari to bring it home.
Will McLaren find some performance in their back pocket this weekend or is it in the bag for Ferrari?
The FIA Is Everyone’s Common Enemy
As I write this at the beginning of FP1, we are still waiting for the FIA’s response to Mercedes’ request to investigate the incident between Lewis and Max last week. But, it is not only the leading teams that have a bone to pick with the FIA. Yuki Tsunoda said that the penalties he received at the Brazil Grand Prix were ‘ridiculous’ compared to the Ricciardo and Bottas incident in Mexico. Carlos Sainz said he hopes “we can have some consistent rule application.”
New Track Means An Even Playing Field
When asked to describe the track, almost every driver used the word ‘quick’. With many high-speed corners and long straights, of course, pure speed is going to be a key aspect of this race. When asked to predict Mercedes’ performance this weekend, Lewis Hamilton said like everyone else they don’t know what to expect but he is “hopeful they can put the car where it was last week.” This weekend will be all about who can maximise the practice sessions to master the circuit and use this to their advantage come Sunday.
Wherever you are watching from this weekend, enjoy all of the surprises a new track can provide and soak in this epic title battle as it happens!
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