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00:00Of course it's going to be, I mean, that's super emotional weekend.
00:03It's the greatest partnership in the history of Formula 1 between driver and team.
00:09Incredible story, incredible success.
00:13Yeah, and it comes to an end this weekend.
00:16One more drive and he wants to interrupt me.
00:20Yeah, well Crofty's stat was, Nico, that he...
00:22Crofty's stat is that...
00:23I think it's going to be a good day.
00:26I've got a good feeling.
00:28Good.
00:29A positive.
00:30A positive Fernando Alonso, who yesterday declared this the worst car ever.
00:35So, you know, it is, that proves that it is a combination of
00:39not just driver and engineers, but the whole team.
00:41It is a team sport.
00:43And again, Adrian Newey would be nowhere if the pit stop crew were pathetic
00:47and kept dropping wheels and the wheel guns going flying.
00:50Speaking of flying, Alonso dodging the bird.
00:54Yeah, playing with fire there.
00:58In the middle sector, only by a few hundredths faster than his teammate,
01:01he ends up those six tenths off the pace, down in sixth place.
01:05Yeah, and I think you mentioned on the soft tyre as well,
01:08but so there's definitely at least four or five tenths of difference
01:13between the two tyres alone.
01:15And what's Perez been up to in turn one?
01:17Bit wide.
01:18Off the track.
01:18So if that happens in qualifying, your lap time will be deleted.
01:21Not going to get deleted now,
01:23but it's something for the team to pass on, on your fastest lap.
01:27Well, for now, you were not all four wheels over that white line.
01:30And Max is another one, Nico,
01:32taking the line that you think is not the best, i.e. too wide, out of the hairpin.
01:37Depends, though.
01:38Sometimes it can be a really matter of centimetres.
01:42He was quite, it's quite hard in his comments,
01:44saying how, you know, I lost respect and blah, blah, blah.
01:46That was a car offline, or online.
01:49Yeah, we saw that.
01:52Yeah, I think, yeah, so I didn't know which Red Bull it was.
01:56Perez, you should know better.
01:58Working as a team, know better not to place your car on the racing line.
02:03Carlos Sainz, that looks a bit smoky.
02:05Yeah, that's not good, is it?
02:06No, it's not.
02:07That's not good for the Constructors' Championship.
02:09They've already got a ten place grid penalty, of course.
02:12Ferrari with the battery change at Charles Leclerc's car.
02:16First time he's had to take an extra element from his power unit allocation this season.
02:21Sainz is still on the track.
02:22He's made his way now to Turn 9.
02:27And he has gone very, very slowly in the middle sector.
02:31He's behind Lewis Hamilton currently on the track.
02:34Ted, I don't know if you're down there.
02:35Yeah, let me know what you're thinking.
02:37Right now, I don't really have any major thoughts.
02:40I don't really know why the pace is so bad.
02:43What was my balance limitation on that lap, then?
02:46Nothing major, mate.
02:48It's, yeah, I mean, everything feels reasonably normal.
02:51It's just all slow.
02:53So, there's no real rhyme or reason as to why it should be the chassis,
02:58but sometimes it can be, and nobody really seems to have the answer,
03:02as Piastri would have had that lap time deleted if this was qualifying.
03:05He would, and his teammate lost time as well.
03:07We've got a mixture of tyres being used at the moment.
03:10At top of the times, though, Kevin Magnussen on the soft tyres,
03:14from Max Verstappen on the medium,
03:15and Lando Norris on the soft,
03:17and Holkenberg making it two Haas cars in the top four,
03:20with Lewis Hamilton fifth currently for Mercedes.
03:23The mysteries of Carlos Sainz may be explained
03:26by the car touching over the bumps,
03:28and a bit of dust coming off the plank,
03:32and the mysteries of Max Verstappen,
03:37studied by one of the new static cameras.
03:39I think they've actually put more static cameras in to the circuit
03:42to monitor track limits,
03:45which they nearly had to do again there,
03:46as he struggled to bring the car to a stop down at turn five.
03:49You see that oversteer?
03:50So, that's what I was talking about before,
03:52that the track is just so much hotter.
03:54And George now going to beat, trying to beat Albon there.
03:58Missed the apex a little bit there.
03:59Let's see his run.
04:00So, he's avoided the kerb on the outside there.
04:02He thinks it's better to avoid that bumpiness
04:04and gives you better traction.
04:06Piastri in the same time has started his lap
04:08and is one tenth up on George.
04:10So, he's looking a bit stronger there than George so far.
04:13Let's see his braking into this.
04:14This is like massive braking.
04:16Hit the apex there.
04:16You need to stay tight on the exit
04:18so you get a good run through that second part,
04:20which is quite bumpy kerb on the inside.
04:22And it's so important to get a good run out
04:24because the speed carries on down this very, very long straight again.
04:28And now here, it's just a very late, light, deep braking.
04:31And so hard, this corner, to get it right.
04:33Like, you're braking deep, trying to hug the inside,
04:35stay on the inside,
04:36then back on the power, slowly feeding in that throttle.
04:39And now, with overheating rear tires, as Ant was saying,
04:43into this slower section here.
04:45And it's just about keeping the car as clean as possible
04:47and carrying the speed through these corners
04:49and using the maximum amount of road.
04:50You see him going all the way to the wall.
04:51Here, this corner is flat, if I'm not mistaken.
04:54Easy flat.
04:55Then, last corner, you get massive oversteer
04:58because the rear is so hot
04:59and you use the maximum amount of track.
05:01And he's three tenths up on Williams,
05:04which I don't think looks too impressive at this point in time.
05:07But that was better, that exit from George Russell,
05:10than it was yesterday.
05:10Piastri now puts six tenths between himself and George Russell.
05:15Don't forget, Oscar Piastri out-qualified Lando Norris here last year.
05:19And he's only done that four times since and not at all.
05:22It's McLaren 1 and 2, as it was in FP2 yesterday.
05:25Here comes Nico Hülkenberg to try and split the McLarens.
05:28He can't, but he does go ahead of his teammate
05:31and just behind George Russell.
05:33That would do Haas very nicely.
05:35But there are others to come.
05:36The Ferraris, Hamilton, Verstappen as well,
05:39as Joe Granul, 10th fastest.
05:41Here is Max Verstappen,
05:43making his way round the final couple of corners.
05:45The man who's been on polar course for the last four years
05:48here at the Yas Marina Circuit.
05:50Max Verstappen, third fastest,
05:52reduces the deficits to Oscar Piastri to four tenths of a second.
05:57And flying and squirreling his way out of the final corner,
06:00here's Valtteri Bottas, goes into the top ten.
06:03Meanwhile, Carlos Sainz goes quickest through the middle sector.
06:07Here come the Ferraris,
06:09because Charles Leclerc is on a lap as well,
06:11but not as fast as his teammates.
06:13About three tenths down on Sainz so far.
06:16Round the final corner comes Leclerc,
06:17only eighth fastest,
06:19and about seven tenths off the pace,
06:20drops down behind Lewis Hamilton.
06:23Here comes Carlos Sainz, though.
06:24The two Haases pits just before him,
06:26so they won't get in his way.
06:28Round the final corner,
06:30Carlos Sainz, who's best qualifying here,
06:33is fourth on the grid,
06:34goes fourth fastest now.
06:362022, he was fourth on the grid here.
06:38And Sergio Perez, 14th and a second off the pace.
06:42Nico?
06:44Yeah, let's just quickly look at Lando.
06:46Whoa, big snap again on the rear.
06:47They're going off track.
06:50That's the end of your lap.
06:51You just lose so much time.
06:52Well, anyway, obviously, it will be lap time deleted.
06:55I thought they were going to show us the repeat of this part here.
06:57So 13th, and they're seeing that.
06:59Yeah, well, same thing.
07:00Big snap on the rear again.
07:02So for him at the moment,
07:04he's set up his car too aggressively,
07:06so it's just too much oversteer.
07:08And however, that's going to come towards him this evening.
07:12So perhaps he'll be thinking,
07:13okay, actually, yeah, for now it's too oversteering,
07:15but I'll leave it like that
07:16because the track's going to come towards me for this evening.
07:19That could be his thinking,
07:21but difficult because you're just, yeah, difficult one to get away.
07:26It's still a bit of a gamble, isn't it?
07:28Less than two minutes to go.
07:30Hamilton is on a better lap here
07:33in both of the first and middle sectors for himself.
07:37But he's only just outside the time
07:39he needs to challenge Oscar Piastri.
07:41But this, where the tires are screaming for mercy,
07:45is where you want to have performance life.
07:47And there won't be an awful lot of grip for Lewis Hamilton
07:50or for anyone through that final sector
07:51on what is a second run in terms of a qualifying push.
07:56Wow.
07:56Hamilton goes third fastest, though.
07:58Oscar Piastri, twice he's won sprint qualifying.
08:02Five times he's been on the front row for a Grand Prix.
08:04He's never got a pole position in Formula 1 yet.
08:08This man has, of course,
08:10but not when his car drifts wide like that
08:14and over the kerbs once again.
08:15He's another victim, like Norris was,
08:17of the car seeming to have a bit of understeer
08:20as you turn into front sliding.
08:22And then out of nowhere, the rear snaps on you mid-corner.
08:25It's a horrible balance to have.
08:26Trust me, let's just have a little look once again
08:29at the George Russell-Landau-Norris moment.
08:32It might get noted by race control.
08:34George was on the racing line.
08:37I don't think anything will happen at a practice session.
08:39I don't think anything will happen.
08:40I'm not saying anything will happen.
08:41I'm just saying it might get noted by race control.
08:43Lewis Hamilton was third fastest
08:46and Max Verstappen fourth fastest.
08:48Let's give you the 1, 2, 3
08:50and the times for all 20 drivers as well.
08:53Carlos Sainz, the lead Ferrari,
08:55fifth fastest and nearly half a second off the pace.
08:58George Russell and Nico Hülkenberg
09:00and Kevin Magnussen,
09:02separated by about two one-hundredths of a second.
09:04That's Charles Leclerc into that fight as well.
09:06Sergio Perez just squeezed into the top 10 in the end
09:10and it's close.
09:11All the way down to Franco Colopinto in 20th place.
09:16Look at this.
09:16Yuki Tsunoda, who's just had a practice start,
09:18which he described as shocking, in 11th.
09:21Alex Albon, three hundredths slower.
09:24Pierre Gasly, three hundredths slower.
09:26Jack Dewitt, two hundredths slower
09:27and it carries on and on and only 1.3 seconds
09:30between Franco Colopinto and Oscar Piastri.
09:33Qualifying to come for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
09:35Could be tight, this one.
09:37Don't miss it.