F1 2020's fiercest battle now hinges on a 0.068s swing

The finish line for the 2020 Formula 1 season is in sight, the prolonged and compacted saga reaching its conclusion at this weekend's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. For the fourth year in a row, though, the season finale will not crown a world champion.

But that doesn't mean there's nothing left to play for.

In the opening practice sessions, Max Verstappen led the way for Red Bull in the unrepresentative, sun-kissed FP1, while Valtteri Bottas returned Mercedes to its usual perch in FP2. This was an unusual session in that all three leading drivers (Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Verstappen) had different issues that stopped them truly showing what they could do over a single lap.

And it's ultimate pace that will likely form a significant part of the outcome in the final race of a fight that has grabbed headlines from the start of the year. This is one that sits behind F1's leading squads and will define 2020's satisfaction at three teams: the fight for third in the constructors' championship.

Overall order

1. Mercedes (Bottas) 1m36.276s
2. Red Bull (Verstappen) 1m37.046s
3. McLaren (Norris) 1m37.438s
4. Renault (Ocon) 1m37.505s
5. Racing Point (Perez) 1m37.506s
6. Ferrari (Leclerc) 1m37.508s
7. AlphaTauri (Kvyat) 1m37.596s
8. Alfa Romeo (Raikkonen) 1m38.068s
9. Haas (Magnussen) 1m38.504s
10. Williams (Russell) 1m38.817s

As can be seen above, the teams this concerns are nearly inseparable on one-lap pace so far. But, as ever in F1, it comes down to the final thousandths of a second to find out who really is ahead - with McLaren leading the way on Friday ahead of Renault and Racing Point. But all in all, the three teams are covered by just 0.068 seconds.

The order and the gap involved in the Class B battle are both crucial factors to consider.

The order is significant, no matter how the teams are arranged at this point in the Abu Dhabi weekend, because all three teams still have a chance to secure the valuable constructors' berth - this is despite it swinging wildly between them of late. Renault looking to be ahead after Imola, McLaren after the Bahrain GP and Racing Point nosed back ahead with its win and third place last weekend.

The gap is significant because of the track for this event. The Yas Marina track is notoriously hard to pass at, which Fernando Alonso - getting reacquainted in the Renault R25 with a series of demo runs this weekend - will no doubt remember well after his 2010 title loss cooped up behind Vital Petrov's Renault R30. This is one of the most famous examples of how a faster car cannot guarantee getting by in the Abu Dhabi race, with another one being Sebastian Vettel not being able to overtake Nico Rosberg late in the 2016 season finale - the last one to feature a to-the-wire title fight - despite Hamilton's efforts to back his then team-mate into the following Ferrari.

The fragile nature of the soft tyres, which also had blistering on Friday, means it is highly likely some teams will try and get through Q2 on the medium tyres to steal a tactical advantage in the race

So, whichever one of McLaren, Renault and Racing Point qualifies ahead tomorrow will steal an early advantage. But, as ever, it's not that simple.

For a start, while the Mercedes and Verstappen have tended to scoop up the front three spots on the grid, Alex Albon has struggled to regularly claim P4 and Charles Leclerc has been an occasional qualifying star for Ferrari. These drivers starting in the middle of the P3 battle would add an extra variable to Sunday's race.

Then there's this weekend's tyres, which are the C3, C4 and C5 - the softest in Pirelli's range.

At this stage, the softs look like being a one-lap qualifying tyre, as the drivers struggled to get a second run out of this compound on Friday, which was a key factor in Bottas, Hamilton and Verstappen not bettering their best times on the mediums in FP2 after respectively running wide at Turn 1, having the session's fastest time deleted for track limits at the final corner, and catching traffic in the form of Sergio Perez on a long run.

The fragile nature of the soft tyres, which also had blistering on Friday, means it is highly likely some teams will try and get through Q2 on the medium tyres to steal a tactical advantage in the race. But this adds risk - although probably not for Mercedes and Verstappen given their regular advantage this season and pace at the head of the pack today.

Any team that tries to get through to the top 10 shootout on the yellow walled-rubber and fails will find themselves mired in the pack.

Soft tyre order

1. Red Bull 1m41.936 4 laps
2. Alfa Romeo 1m42.772 4 laps
3. McLaren 1m43.052 5 laps
4. Ferrari 1m43.312 5 laps
5. AlphaTauri 1m43.672 4 laps
6. Renault 1m43.935 5 laps
7. Williams 1m44.221 6 laps
8. Haas 1m44.788 4 laps
Mercedes and Racing Point N/A

In terms of the soft tyre long run averages on Friday (above), it is tough to get a clear and reliable picture based on what happened today (and for any compound for the same reasons). The long runs in FP1 took place in unrepresentative weather conditions, and plenty of teams used this as a test session to try parts for 2021, while the typical long run data gathering in FP2 in the same conditions the race will take place in were interrupted by Kimi Raikkonen's Alfa Romeo spectacularly catching fire.

This not only brought the runs that were being logged to a premature close, much like Pierre Gasly's fire did at Portimao a few races back, it disrupted proceedings for a long time towards the end of the session.

In the lead battle averages on this tyre, Red Bull topped the times while Mercedes never planned to complete long runs on the softs, preferring instead to gather additional information on the 2021 C4 prototypes the teams were obliged to try in FP2 (although they didn't have to do what Mercedes did, which was put the unmarked rubber back on during the long runs later in the session).

In the P3 battle, McLaren can take encouragement from its place in this table, while Renault was further adrift here and Racing Point, which did a lot of race preparation work in FP2, didn't do any meaningful long running on the red-walled rubber.

Medium tyre order

1. Red Bull 1m41.913s 5 laps
2. Renault 1m42.669s 6 laps
3. Racing Point 1m43.773s 9 laps
4. Mercedes 1m44.006s 6 laps
5. Alfa Romeo 1m44.031s 6 laps
6. Williams 1m44.770s 9 laps
7. Haas 1m44.887s 6 laps
Ferrari, McLaren, AlphaTauri N/A

On the medium averages (above), McLaren and Racing Point swap places in the sense that one sat this compound out, while Renault can take encouragement from logging what looks to be a better run - with all the usual caveats about fuel loads and practice engine modes applying - on this tyre.

"I'm happy with the balance of the car and the progress we've made today. It's just a shame we'll be starting near the back because I think we have the package for another good result" Sergio Perez

The hard tyre averages order (below), provides the most-useful indication based on the snapshot of FP2 that points towards race trends, as all three of the teams involved in the P3 fight (Ferrari briefly looked like it might be a factor in this battle after its great result in Turkey, but two dreadful races in Bahrain followed) used this compound for long runs.

Here, Racing Point leads the way, but not by much over McLaren, with Renault appearing to be behind AlphaTauri - another team that can be expected to cause disruption for the teams in the P3 fight given Gasly's 2020 excellence and Daniil Kvyat's strong recent form.

Hard tyre order

1. Racing Point 1m42.346s 5 laps
2. McLaren 1m42.533s 6 laps
3. AlphaTauri 1m42.667s 5 laps
4. Renault 1m43.093s 6 laps
5. Ferrari 1m44.088s 6 laps
6. Williams 1m44.374s 6 laps
Mercedes, Red Bull, Alfa Romeo, Haas N/A

There's also an additional element per squad for each of the three teams we're discussing to be wary of after Friday.

Watching trackside in FP1, it looked like the McLaren was giving Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz Jr more of a handful at the Turn 12/13 chicane than their rivals had - with the former generally skittish over the kerbs and the latter regularly having to catch snaps of oversteer through the right-hand part of the complex.

McLaren wasn't alone in this - the same could be said to apply to Bottas's trips through here in the afternoon session - but Sainz did say at the close of play on Friday that "every time we put the soft tyre on today we didn't have the cleanest of laps due to traffic, or we simply didn't nail the set-up".

The issues at Renault and Racing Point are more tangible.

Daniel Ricciardo lost most of FP1 when a fuel pump problem stopped his running - although as he later said: "If you're going to miss a session in Abu Dhabi it's probably better that it's the first one as it isn't representative for qualifying and the race". Perez, meanwhile, will follow his Sakhir victory with a back of the pack start due to taking a fresh engine for this race.

"I'm happy with the balance of the car and the progress we've made today," said Perez. "It's just a shame we'll be starting near the back because I think we have the package for another good result."

But the best results in Abu Dhabi will almost certainly be shared out by the usual suspects: Mercedes and Red Bull. And there's extra attention being paid to one of these cars given it had another driver in it last weekend.

Hamilton's return as been one of the biggest talking points of the Abu Dhabi weekend so far, and it was interesting to watch him from Autosport's trackside vantage point for his first time back in the car since his COVID-19 absence.

Hamilton will be looking to reassert himself over a team-mate eyeing a positive end to a disappointing campaign, with the ever-threatening Verstappen in tow. Behind them, comes the big battle to seal best-of-the-rest

The first time through in FP1, Hamilton took things nice and easy, saying later that it took him "a good session and a half to get back into the flow". But the second time around he was at full chat already, which went down well at his team. He later missed a big chunk of that session due to a brake issue.

His late FP2 pitlane stoppage was caused by a clutch issue, which followed Mercedes swapping his steering wheel in a 'hot-swap' pit manoeuvre, which is standard practice the team has built into its weekend preparation programme to check all its steering wheels are working should they be needed at any point in the rest of the weekend. Despite George Russell running in this particular W11 last weekend, Hamilton's car was as he left it at the end of the Bahrain GP specification-wise.

All this is to set out the dynamics to watch for the rest of the weekend before F1 exits into another off-season.

Hamilton will be looking to reassert himself over a team-mate eyeing a positive end to a disappointing campaign, with the ever-threatening Verstappen in tow. Behind them, comes the big battle to seal best-of-the-rest.