JPower wrote: ↑08 Dec 2024, 05:48
Pretty close with Norris/Piastri.
In terms of race pace, still fairly close between the two(Sainz has greatly improved on that front over the past 2 years). Will finish the calcs next week but I think the only teammates closer will be end up being Hamilton/Russell who are essentially dead even on Sundays.
Even with Hamilton starting from worse positions and likely working harder to advance, the race pace is still there. Fred can take solace in that at least. If he can gel with the 2025 car in quali next year, I think he'll be very competitive with Leclerc. A consistent year and the WCC is in reach if the car is there.
Piastri is definitely not as good a qualifier as Sainz is if we're looking at the qualifying head to head, pace aside. Sainz is right up there with Norris, Russell, Verstappen, and Leclerc most of the time. Moreover, he can outqualify Leclerc 1/3 of the time; Piastri only outqualified Norris a handful of times this season, and one of those was due to a yellow flag error.
The only point against Sainz is that in early 2022 he was nowhere while Leclerc was chasing wins (and Leclerc should've gotten at least 2 more than he did during that period) - but that was a long time ago and like you said, he's improved significantly since then.
As for Hamilton, I don't think any of us can predict how he'll perform. But one thing about Leclerc and Hamilton... we know they both tend to push very hard in qualifying, sometimes to their own detriment. It'll be interesting to see how much this pattern continues into next year.
dialtone wrote: ↑08 Dec 2024, 05:52
It should be a fun race tomorrow. I hope LEC goes and mindless, there’s no point worrying for WCC since before this race, 21 points is too hard, go into this and take your risks and enjoy the race.
I agree... though Abu Dhabi isn't an amazing track for overtaking so I don't expect Brazil levels of positions gained here.
