Why Red Bull's all rookie F1 Abu Dhabi FP1 line-up has value

All teams have to field a rookie in each car in one FP1 session during the year.

While other teams have also waited until the last possible opportunity at the season finale for their second runs, only Red Bull will run a rookie in both of its cars, leaving Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez as spectators for that session.

Formula E champion and long-time Milton Keynes sim driver Jake Dennis will have his first run in a real F1 car since 2018, and he will be joined by F2 star Isack Hadjar, who also drove for AlphaTauri in FP1 in Mexico last month.

"It's interesting because when you put a different driver into the car, you get a different perspective on things,” said Monaghan when asked by Autosport about the rookie running.

“They present it differently, their feedback, and if they use different terminologies, it sometimes enlightens us on different ways to look at problems.

“Max is very robust in his feedback, [and] Checo is very similar in that he will state his likes and dislikes. But then Jake might just put a different spin on things. 

"And he just says, ‘This is how I feel it.’ ‘Okay, that's interesting,’ because it opens you up to another way to look at things.

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

World champion Jake Dennis, Andretti Autosport celebrates

“So any driver that gets into the car is an opportunity for us to learn something. And Jake's very much a contributor to that process.”

Monaghan agreed it would be useful for sim correlation purposes for Dennis to try the real car after a break of five years.

"We can do all the simulation work we want,” he said. “But then if a simulator represents an F3 car and we're running one of these, then your simulator correlation is not necessarily the finest.

“So any refinements of that process are gladly welcome because it is so much the basis of what we do now.”

Monaghan stressed that the race drivers won’t be missing out much as the daytime first session in Abu Dhabi is not representative of the cooler conditions for qualifying and the race itself.

"We've pushed it back this far because we didn't necessarily know how the season would pan out,” he said. “So we tried to maximise the opportunities for race drivers, and we will put the two lads in.

“If you look at the P1 in terms of time of day, track and ambient temperatures, it's unrepresentative of qualifying and race.

“So one could argue that while it denies the race drivers another hour of getting used to track in the car and so on. If it was the other way round and P1 were the only session in race time, it could really be quite a dent.

“As it is they will miss out on an hour's track time, but P2 is typically more useful for the race prep than P1.”