São Paulo – Over 60,000 people are expected to attend the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the last race of the 2018 Formula 1 season, next weekend. This will be the 10th edition of the race at Yas Marina Circuit (pictured above), in the UAE capital. Emirates News Agency (WAM) quoted the track’s CEO Tareq Al Ameri as saying 65% of racegoers are not UAE residents – a major leap since, as of the 1st edition, only 15% of the crowd were foreign visitors.
Britain’s Lewis Hamilton has already won the builders’ championship and his team, Mercedes, has secured the constructors’ title. Abu Dhabi GP will be the last F1 race for two-time world champion Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard with McLaren – known as one of the most well-rounded drivers of his generation – is quitting the category after this season. Although he does not rule out an eventual comeback, it won’t happen in 2019.
Alonso’s plans for next year include finishing the ongoing 2018/19 FIA World Endurance Championship super season, which he’s racing with Toyota, and to race the USA’s Indianapolis 500 again, with McLaren.
This will also be the last chance to see Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen racing a Ferrari, which he won the 2017 world championship in. Next year will see the Iceman drive a Swiss-built car by Sauber, the team in which he made his F1 debut, back in 2001. Daniel Ricciardo will also have his last race with Red Bull. In 2019, the wide-smiled Australian will be racing a Renault.
Raikkonen will also be racing for the third place in this year’s championship – Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, from Germany, has secured the second spot. He will have the upper hand here, since he’s 14 points ahead of also-Finnish Valtteri Bottas, with Mercedes, and 17 points ahead of the Dutch-born Red Bull racer Max Verstappen – the two drivers who still stand a chance of beating Raikkonen.
Bottas who won last year’s Abu Dhabi GP, is yet to finish first this year; and Verstappen is hungry for a win after seeing the Brazil GP slip through his fingers two weeks ago: he was leading the race when his car was crashed into by Force India racer Esteban Ocon of France, who was one lap behind Verstappen. This gave Hamilton an easy win, with the Dutch driver finishing second.
Free practice 1 and 2 will happen on Friday (23); free practice 3 and the qualifiers are slated for Saturday (24), and the race is due on Sunday. Click here for a full schedule.
Free practice 1 will be a chance to see Poland’s Robert Kubica drive a Williams. The British builder has just confirmed him as its main driver for next season, eight years after his last F1 race. Then a rising start in the category, he had a serious accident in a rally in 2011, which compromised his right arm movements. Although he had been racing the World Rally Championship for the past few years and doing work as a reserve and test driver for Williams in 2018, his full-blown F1 comeback was still deemed uncertain.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
