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Four grid penalties affect the starting order for Formula 1’s 2024 season finale, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. One has major implications for the constructors’ championship title fight and another marred qualifying's big underdog hero story.
Nico Hulkenberg had qualified fourth for his final race with Haas. Not the first star qualifying result for a man who'd already got in the top six on two grands prix grids this year, but the best so far as he lined up behind only two McLarens and a Ferrari.
But he is demoted to seventh as he was found guilty of contravening the race director's event instructions by overtaking two cars in the pit exit tunnel.
Ferrari already faced a hard task to overhaul McLaren’s 21-point championship lead, and a 10-place penalty for Charles Leclerc for taking a third energy store of the season made that harder still - even before Leclerc then consigned himself to 14th in qualifying when his best Q2 lap was deleted.
But that won’t quite demote Leclerc to last on the actual grid, as both Williams also have penalties of five place for taking additional gearboxes after recent crash damage.
Franco Colapinto, hampered by makeshift floor repairs because the team lacked the spares to replace it after damage, was only 19th in qualifying.
His and Leclerc’s penalties drop them both to a theoretical 24th on the grid, which means Leclerc starts ahead of the Williams in 19th because his actual pre-penalty qualifying result was better.
Alex Albon was 16th in qualifying in the other Williams, but with Leclerc and Colapinto penalised too he drops only two places to 18th.
ABU DHABI GP STARTING GRID
1 Lando Norris (McLaren)
2 Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
3 Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)
4 Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
5 Pierre Gasly (Alpine)
6 George Russell (Mercedes)
7 Nico Hulkenberg (Haas)*
8 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)
9 Valtteri Bottas (Sauber)
10 Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
11 Yuki Tsunoda (RB)
12 Liam Lawson (RB)
13 Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
14 Kevin Magnussen (Haas)
15 Zhou Guanyu (Sauber)
16 Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
17 Jack Doohan (Alpine)
18 Alex Albon (Williams) **
19 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) ***
20 Franco Colapinto (Williams) **
* 3-place grid penalty
**5-place grid penalty
***10-place grid penalty
The penalties do small favours to Lewis Hamilton in his last race for Mercedes and Alpine debutant Jack Doohan, replacing Esteban Ocon after the team’s early split with him.
Getting a bollard jammed under his car doomed Hamilton to 18th in the original qualifying results, while Doohan was slowest of all amid traffic jams at the end of Q1.
McLaren is very well-placed to clinch its first F1 title of any kind since Hamilton’s 2008 drivers’ crown and its first constructors’ since 1998 as it took a commanding front row seep with Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri ahead of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari.
