F1 title race is set to be ruined and not because of McLaren team orders

There is only one thing everyone is talking about ahead of F1's three-way-dance for the world championship.

Unsurprisingly it's on if McLaren will hand out team orders, should Lando Norris be needing a team-mate favour or two to win the world championship from Max Verstappen. (Oscar Piastri too but that's a long shot in the team orders debate).

This scenario (one of about a million in play on Sunday), that has all the focus, has come at a perfect time for one of the biggest villains on the F1 circus these days - and that is the Yas Marina circuit that holds the season finale Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Allow me to stop you in your tracks while you question why I'm shouting at a race circuit - this is serious.

The last race of the F1 season can't always be a classic and it can't always have a title race, but does it have to produce banal track action literally every single damn year regardless of what is at stake?

The Yas Marina circuit has been with us now since 2009, it's second race led to a situation where Fernando Alonso couldn't pass a slower car on his way to trying to seal the title - losing out to Sebastian Vettel - and I think we can all agree it's not because the double world champion doesn't have the talent.

Abu Dhabi has never had a good race

There have been two other notable races. The first of those in 2016 when Lewis Hamilton, on any other day, would have taken a straight forward Mercedes one-two. Except in this instance, it would cost him the world championship.

Instead he backed the pack up behind him to try and force a rival to overtake his title rival Nico Rosberg. But because this is Abu Dhabi, he came across an inverted Alonso problem in that no one could get past the backed up Rosberg. Result: Rosberg steals the title.

And of course there is 2021. I don't need to go into too much detail about that, but without a late safety car and a maverick FIA racing director, that was also going to be a lights to the flag win for Hamilton having passed Verstappen at turn one.

How can a racetrack serve up so much rubbish in almost its entire history? I can't think of any other long standing track that serves so much tripe, despite recent changes to add a high speed corner in at turn 9. Even the Spanish Grand Prix at Circuit de Catalunya gave us Michael Schumacher's first Ferrari win in a rain swept masterclass.

The issue Abu Dhabi cannot fix

And that brings me on to my other issue with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix - something no track changes can fix - it's the weather. Yes, yes 'old man yells at cloud' etc but it's true!

Have we ever had a wet race at Yas Marina... or even qualifying? It's just nothing more than a nice little sunset to give F1 the warm fuzzies as a metaphor that the season is ending. Diabolical. It does nothing for F1 the spectacle.

Where is the mid-race shower, the start-line downpour, rapid change of temperature. You don't need this every race but it helps if you get some sort of element that the teams can't control. I'm not even saying it needs to be at the majority of races - but have it as a factor.

Past season-ending F1 races such as the Japanese Grand Prix, the Brazilian Grand Prix and even the Australian Grand Prix have offered wet weather drama before.

Especially the Brazilian Grand Prix. Sao Paulo isn't the best place to end a season as a venue given it's needed high security feature. But we are here for the F1 and Interlagos is King for offering F1 drama with it's mad climate, overtaking opportunities and pure history as an F1 track.

Interlagos is everything that Abu Dhabi isn't. It's pure F1. Abu Dhabi is just F1 PR.

F1 Title Scenarios: How Max Verstappen can win the championship in Abu Dhabi

Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continue to study the history of the sport long before that. As an experienced motor sport reporter covering F1, MotoGP and the LeMans 24 Hour race, being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

View full biography

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