It may be a familiar return to Abu Dhabi for another Formula One season-ending race, but it's anything but on track.
Wide-sweeping changes designed to increase overtaking and create higher speeds will greet drivers this weekend, but it'll also challenge the men and women in the garage. Senior Strategy Engineer Peter Hall gives the lowdown into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Before each race weekend, we gather as much information as we can from previous races, such as overtaking and tyre data, but for new circuits, we look for any info that can help us. Abu Dhabi is an unusual case because several corners have been changed.
In the two weeks leading up to an event, we start to do a lot of simulation work. We look at what the weather will be like, and, in Abu Dhabi, we have earlier sessions that are not representative. They're out in the sun, and sand may have blown onto the track overnight.
That means you have to think slightly differently to other tracks. If we decide on our best tyre and want to get a good read on it, we'll run it in FP2, rather than FP1, because it's more representative.
We'll do our race simulations and try to decide our best strategy while figuring out any question marks we still have. With the number of changes that have happened in Abu Dhabi, we've got a lot of things that we'll want to look at in FP2.
Abu Dhabi has always been a circuit where overtaking has been very difficult. In 2010, Fernando Alonso famously got stuck behind Vitaly Petrov, and lost the Drivers' World Championship.
It was one of the reasons they pushed for DRS in F1, to improve passing at circuits such as Abu Dhabi.
The changes made to the circuit have been to help overtaking, with a lot of focus on Sector Three. The hotel section has historically been close to a street circuit, but now that it has been sped up, it's going to hopefully make it easier for cars to follow.
That will also have a knock-on effect. With the penultimate corner now faster, it could impact the pitlane time loss during pitstops, which is a consideration in strategy.
With all these low-speed corners becoming more high-speed, there's going to be an impact on the tyres, even though we're using the usual compounds here.
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix may have become Formula One's traditional season-ending race – but the deck has been shuffled for 2021 following an extensive track redesign. Teams will be working hard to familiarise themselves with the new layout, and the stage is well and truly set for a thrilling conclusion.
There's going to be more energy put into the tyres, and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out in degradation and the baseline fastest strategy.
In the representative FP2 session, we'll be looking at the data from the cars to see what the effect of following cars is like in Sector Three and whether it will help overtaking.
In the past, drivers would lose their gap to the car ahead. By the time you got to the main straight, which is quite short, even DRS can't help overtaking. So, if we enter the final corner closer to the car ahead, that could help passing in the Grand Prix.
Equally, if you can't pass there, but you’re closer to the car ahead, a pass on the backstraight will be easier for patient drivers.
It will be particularly interesting if the changes don't help overtaking but increase degradation. That will push you towards stopping more often, but with limited overtaking, it will be a challenging call to make for strategy. A one-stopper could be more difficult to execute than in previous years, for example.
In terms of set-up, the track changes are not necessarily pushing everything into what we deem high-speed, but the corners are faster, and it's going to change the average speed of the circuit, meaning there will be downforce considerations, so expect to see a different level run.
As ever, the pitlane and pitstops will be interesting in Abu Dhabi, especially as the pit exit runs under the circuit. Every year we see some drivers doing better than others in that tricky section, which can be vital to your race as a lot of time can be lost in a very technical section. Losing half a second can ruin your race.
As it's the last race of the year, some unique strategies can appear as teams battle over Constructors' and Drivers' Championship placings.
Teams may change strategy to go head-to-head with their rivals, trying to stop themselves being outscored – a bit like we experienced last year with McLaren in the battle for third.
On our side, we'll be aiming to optimise our race. We'll take into consideration how those battles are playing out elsewhere, and see if it can play into our hands!
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