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Oscar Piastri of McLaren, second on the grid, speaks: “We’ll who gets a good start, and go from there.”
How aggressive is he expecting Carloz Sainz to be? “Very.”
Is this Valtteri Bottas’s final race?
“I’m not done yet,” the Sauber driver tells Brundle.
“That’s good to hear,” replies the interviewer.
Brundle then says he saw Bottas popping into the pits earlier – was he wishing his former teammate Hamilton all the best, as he departs Mercedes?
“No,” Bottas replies. “I used the toilet, actually.”
Brundle suggests to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc it might be “fun” to try and battle through the field from 19th.
“It would have been more fun in front,” says the Frenchman. “I’ll do everything I can to make the miracle happen. That’s what we need today, a miracle.”
“It’s a dream come true … I’ve been looking for you all weekend,” the comedian Michael McIntyre tells Brundle of getting involved in the famous pre-race grid walk.
“It’s a little tense … it’s the first time I’ve really missed a [Tottenham] game [to be at this race].” (Spurs v Chelsea is at 4.30pm UK time.)
“My plan was to ignore you [Brundle], because all the cool people do. But I’ve just come over and hugged you, and it’s completely backfired.
“I’m sort of a guest of Mercedes and Red Bull … which may be a bit of a crime. I’m here to broker peace.
“It’s completely and utterly wild [on the grid] … I’m a big fan of yours,” McIntyre tells Brundle, in closing.
“Thank you, I’m a big fan of you, too,” insists Brundle.
“I’m working really hard for it. Hopefully I will get there one day,” Felipe Drugovich, the 2022 Formula 2 champion, tells Brundle of his F1 dream.
The actor Terry Crews, smiling, speaks to Brundle on the grid: “F1 is amazing. This is my fourth race. It won’t be my last.”
“Your energy is amazing,” replies Brundle.
Red Bull’s Christian Horner has a chat with Brundle on his team’s prospects for today. Max Verstappen has long since won the drivers’ title, of course.
“It’s a bit like a cup final for us,” says Horner. “We’ve got nothing to lose. Go for it, try to finish the season on a high note.
“They’ve got their own races to run,” he adds of McLaren and Ferrari. “They may need to be a bit conservative … There will be opportunities, and Max isn’t shy of having a go.”
GRID WALK TIME! Let’s go, Martin.
Brad Pitt is having a chat with Ted Kravitz about the F1 film he’s been working on for the past 18 months.
“I’ve got so much respect for these guys,” Pitt says. “What the drivers can do, what the cars can do. It’s off the charts. I’ve been having the time of my life. I wish I was going another year [of filming] … I might even shed a tear, you might see a grown man cry [when it ends after the race].”
At the end of the live segment Pitt jokingly offers Kravitz a cameo in the film.
“Do you want in?” asks Pitt.
“No, I’m happy doing what I’m doing,” a bashful-looking Kravitz replies. Awkward.
Fun fact: I rode one of Lotto Soudal’s bicycles around the Yas Marina Circuit a few years ago. So I know the racing line.
Giles Richards
The Red Bull team principal, Christian Horner, has defended his driver Max Verstappen in the world champion’s increasingly ill-tempered feud with Mercedes’ George Russell and dismissed their very public falling-out as part of an end-of-year “pantomime season” before this weekend’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Well done if you spotted me mixing up Mercedes and McLaren down there. Silly me.
I didn’t get any emails about it yet, but it’s not too late.
All F1-related emails will be considered for publication.
“Those cars are so fast today. You don’t see it on telly,” Mercedes’s Toto Wolff tells Brundle, in a live interview from the pit lane in Abu Dhabi.
“Lewis was super quick [in qualifying]. We got it wrong. We should have sent him out earlier … and then the bollard. He was quick in P3, he could have been on the front.”
On this being Hamilton’s final race with Mercedes: “It’s high emotions. It’s compartmentalised now. But in two hours, it will be hard.
“If we can’t win, we will cheer for him.”
And on the relative lack of success in recent seasons: “You need to see all the great successes we had … there is no longer, more successful team and driver relationship. This is what we need to celebrate and look back to.
“I would love it if he came through the pack today. That is why I was so upset yesterday [with the qualifying], I wanted to give him a send-off with a podium.”
This is a cool feature from Sky. Brundle chasing Hamilton around Silverstone, both driving Mercedes.
“Look at the speed! Look at the confidence,” Brundle says of the way Hamilton is handling his car.
“I really didn’t want to come in. That was mega,” says Hamilton.
To mark Hamilton’s departure, Martin Brundle has been out driving the Mercedes, with Lewis on hand to give him some tips. Apparently Brundle has driven 70 different cars across his own racing career plus 28 years in broadcasting.
Giles Richards
Bidding farewell with a flourish was the optimistic hope for Lewis Hamilton as he entered his final meeting with Mercedes at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but even fortune, it seems, would not favour the British driver for his swansong where he finished 18th in qualifying.
Preamble
Max Verstappen has already wrapped up his fourth title, the drivers are falling out with each other, and the teams are annoyed with the FIA. Business as usual in Formula One, but today’s season-concluding race still comes loaded with potential drama.
McLaren are well placed to seal their first constructor’s championship since 1998, with Lando Norris in pole position, and his teammate Oscar Piastri second. Ferrari are second in the standings, 21 points down, but Charles Leclerc languishes in 19th on the Yas Marina grid after a 10-place penalty for taking a new battery unit, plus the deletion of his final quick lap in qualifying for exceeding track limits. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz tucks in behind the McLarens in third on the grid, but the Scuderia face what looks an almost impossible task.
In addition to the constructor’s title denouement this will be a poignant occasion for British fans, it being Lewis Hamilton’s final race for Mercedes. The singularly talented seven-times world champion will join Ferrari next year, but after what Toto Wolff called an ‘idiotic’ mistake by the team in qualifying, he starts in 18th place. It will be an emotional day for Hamilton and his team as they rightfully honour their past glories, while McLaren attempt to wrap up that constructors’ crown.
Lights out: 1pm UK time.
