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Xevi Pujolar, Chief Race
Engineer: The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is a unique race starting under
the glare of the sunshine and ending as the sun goes down. The Yas
Marina Circuit features medium to high efficiency, with long straights
and slow speed corners, which results in high brake energy. It has a
lower than average turn angle but corner speeds and fuel consumption are
about average. However, the circuit is different to most for tyres;
lateral tyre energy is low whilst longitudinal energy is high due to the
severe braking and traction demands. Furthermore, the track surface not
only improves over the weekend, but the track evolves between and even
within sessions, with sometimes significant drops in track temperature.
Tyre degradation can be an issue due to the high temperatures and
changing track conditions, this could be especially important in the
race regarding strategy and the order in which you run on each compound.
Pastor Maldonado: Last year I had a good race weekend here,
qualifying in P3 and finishing P5 despite not having KERS available in
the race, so this is a track that suits me and I have good memories of
it. Abu Dhabi also has great weather, nice people and is generally
impressive all around so it is a nice place to visit. I like the track’s
first sector in particular as it is very quick, particularly Turns 2, 3
and 4, and the final sector is very picturesque. Whenever we visit a
race with a hot climate we can see thermal tyre degradation, so this
will be a focus for us in the build up to the weekend. We have made some
progress in recent weeks and the car felt better in India, so we will be
looking to continue moving forwards as we approach the final few races
of the season.
Valtteri Bottas: Abu Dhabi is very different to recent tracks;
the corners are quite short with lots of chicanes and big braking zones,
so we will need to set the car up differently. You need good traction
when exiting the corners to minimise wheel spin and your car needs to be
good at taking kerbs. We are not expecting the track to be too severe on
tyres, although because the ambient and track temperatures are quite
high the tyres can degrade thermally quite a bit so we will need to
manage that. I have good memories of the Yas Marina Circuit as this is
where I drove a Formula One car for the first time in 2011 with
Williams, and we had a strong result here last year as well which should
prove useful for this weekend when setting the
car up.
Rémi Taffin, Renault Sport F1 Head of Track Operations: The Yas
Marina circuit is a very typical modern style track with mainly slow to
medium corners, long straights and tight hairpin bends. The stop start
nature of the track makes fuel consumption very high over one lap, and
is further increased by the high atmospheric pressure due to being at
sea level. The day to night schedule makes ambient conditions vary
significantly, plus grip levels and tyre warm up and air pressure will
change. The engine needs to respond to this new set of parameters so we
are constantly monitoring weather reports throughout the weekend.
Paul Hembery, Pirelli Motorsport Director: Abu Dhabi is one of
the circuits that we know best as we’ve done so much of our testing
there before we came into Formula One. It’s a varied track with a bit of
everything so we wanted to open up as many options as possible, which is
why we selected the P Zero White medium and P Zero Yellow soft. That’s
the same choice that we had in India but the usage conditions are going
to be very different this time. That’s not only because the
characteristics of the two circuits are very different, but also because
the weather will not be the same. Abu Dhabi is the only race of the year
that starts off in the late afternoon and ends in the evening, which
means that the pattern of track and tyre temperature evolution is very
different to what we find anywhere else. This will have a big effect on
the strategy, so the work that the teams carry out in free practice
especially will be very important.
Race Data
Friday:
Practice 1: 13:00 - 14:30
Practice 2: 17:00 - 18:30
Saturday:
Practice 3: 14:00 - 15:00
Qualifying: 17:00 – 18:00
Sunday:
Race: 17:00
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