Sky Sports' Rachel Brookes reflects on the end of term in Abu Dhabi, quiet signs of tension at Merc, and life on the F1 road in 2015...
Wednesday 13 January 2016 09:05, UK
I took advantage of being in the UAE in November by grabbing a couple of days in Dubai ahead of the race week in Abu Dhabi.
It's been a long season and as much as I have enjoyed it, it takes its toll. The evidence was there during my first live on Thursday morning when I received three messages from different people at home saying how refreshed I looked after my days in Dubai. You can always rely on your nearest and dearest to tell you it how it is! I had obviously been looking pretty tired before then!
As the titles were wrapped up, and teams were winding down in terms of promotional activity, we didn't start our week in Abu Dhabi until the Wednesday.
With just two seats left for 2016 it was time to speak to one of the drivers vying to be there next season in the new Mercedes-powered Manor (or whatever the team name becomes now). We have always tried to feature as many drivers as possible on Sky Sports News HQ and I have spoken to Will Stevens a few times over the season outside of the usual media scrums or pen interviews. We head to the track to meet him before his track walk around the Yas Marina Circuit and as the sun set we talked about his season so far and why he thinks he deserves another go.
You don't often see Will or either of his team-mates featured much during the race itself, so for me to know how they are doing I am constantly looking at the timing screens.
However, all that tells me is when they pit and who is ahead and by how much. It doesn't tell me if they made a great overtake, or if a mechanical issue explains why they are suddenly 30 seconds behind their team-mate having started ahead.
Most of the time I have basic facts and have to ask the drivers after the race what actually happened. That is why you will sometimes here us ask "how was your race?". We might know they made up a place or two at the start but beyond that we need them to tell us. It doesn't just happen at the back, sometimes someone in the midfield hasn't been seen on the race footage but tells you about a great battle they were having or a problem with the car you didn't see. It's also the reason we don't throw a lot of information at a driver when he stands in front of us in the pen, it's for him to tell us what happened and why.
Will tells me that he has worked on his qualifying pace this year and is pleased with the improvement, but that it may have been at a cost to his race pace - although that has picked up in the latter part of the year. He says the team have all the the data and telemetry to tell how he has done in comparison to his team-mate and he feels he has done enough to stay. It would be great to have four British drivers on the grid next year and let's not forgot the likes of Marcus Ericsson, now he is not driving around at the back in a Caterham, has shown he can do a decent job given a half-decent car. With a better car in 2016 might we see similar performances from Will?
After the interview, we head out to the track to film him setting off for his track walk. Lots of drivers choose to do it on Wednesday evening as the conditions are more akin to what they will find for the race and because it is a lot cooler than doing it at their usual time of Thursday late morning.
Then we head to the Toro Rosso garage for a sit down with Max Verstappen. It's for a piece at the end of the year. There is no doubt he has had a phenomenal season for someone so young but, as they say, if you are good enough you are old enough and he is certainly good enough. We chat about his year and how well he has coped with everything that comes with being an F1 driver and I ask him what he thinks his strength is on track. He says it's his overtaking but he can't say why. He really doesn't know why he sees a gap where others would hold back or wait for another opportunity. It's no coincidence though that when compiling the best overtakes of the year, Max features heavily.
I like Max and you always feel like he is engaged when you talk to him. But I also think his team-mate has been a lot closer to him than the results would suggest this year. In terms of qualifying, Carlos has beaten him 10-9 and but for his mechanical issues we would have seen a much closer fight than their 31 points difference suggests. One thing is clear, with a better car next year, Toro Rosso could really have a great season with those two at the wheels.
After the interview we head to the office at the track and I put together the Will Stevens piece to run on Sky Sports News HQ later that day. It involves the usual process of writing a script and choosing the pictures to put in, as well as archive footage from races earlier in the year.
Once that is sent in we head back to the hotel for some dinner. One of the great things about the Abu Dhabi race is that we can walk to our hotel. Also the hotel has a restaurant and bar that is usually packed with F1 people as one of the teams stays there too so there are always familiar faces around.
On Thursday morning we head to the track for the media day, but before that begins I do a live into SSNHQ about the weekend ahead and what there is still to race for despite the titles being decided.
It is already really hot but fortunately due to the timings for the weekend we don't spend too many hours in the sun before it sets. I ask most of the drivers for their highlight of the season but it's not really something you can put to the McLaren drivers. I ask Fernando about a conversation we had this time last year where he said he was going into a project he believed in, that project being the McLaren-Honda partnership.
What would he say to himself standing here a year ago? He replies that he would tell himself it was the right decision. He also says the way the whole team had pulled together has really impressed him. Instead of people working for themselves they have worked together and become more united in the tough times. I really hope they find that missing few seconds over the winter and the drivers have something to compete with next year. Another 12 months like they have just had does not bear thinking about.
While waiting to interview Jenson I hear that we have been given five minutes with Kimi Raikkonen on the roof of the Ferrari hospitality unit. We don't get to speak to Kimi much over the course of a season so five minutes is a very rare occurrence.
As you know, even when he does speak he is fairly economical with words. As it is I ask him pretty much everything I want to and he answers fully - even when I ask him about Sebastian moulding both the car and the team around him and about the rumour Verstappen is on Ferrari's wish-list for 2017. I always have to listen back to Kimi interviews afterwards, he is so softly spoken it's impossible to hear him at the time.
Talking of Kimi, he is in the post-qualifying press conference on Saturday alongside a sombre pole sitter Nico Rosberg and an equally subdued Lewis Hamilton. Nico's pole lap was sensational though and Anthony Davidson described it as one of the best he has ever seen. Nico wasn't overly enamoured about it when I interview him afterwards though, and says there are no points for Saturday. That may be true but I expected him to be a bit more enthusiastic about it. We can be accused of being too hard on drivers but when they perform well and you compliment them and they respond in a negative manner it can be hard to be positive back after that.
Our last thing On Saturday night is an interview with Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg by a boat in the marina at 8.30 pm. They seem in fairly good spirits and once the interview is done we head to Williams for a rooftop bar BBQ.
I was asked how many hours we work over a Grand Prix weekend and it varies race to race. For example, in Australia you could be live at 8am local time which is 9pm UK time, work throughout the day doing your usual driver interviews and filming, and then be live again until 10pm at night local time, 11am in the UK. To be live on SSNHQ at 8am though requires you to be at the track at 7am to get everything ready and set up. That carries on throughout the weekend and, for example, when Daniel Ricciardo was excluded from the race in 2014, we finished at 3am local time in the early hours of the Monday morning.
In Abu Dhabi the four-hour time difference and day/night race schedule means that you don't have to be at the track at 7am but you do finish a bit later than you would at European races. When I work for the Sky Sports F1 channel the day follows a more regular pattern; you are always there a couple of hours at least before Practice One on Friday and work through until after The F1 Show finishes on Friday night. On Saturday you arrive at least a couple of hours before FP3 and work through until a couple of hours after qualifying has finished and all necessary filming is complete. Race day runs much the same way.
Sunday in Abu Dhabi had an end-of-term feel to it. The race didn't throw up any real surprises, although Seb got up to fourth from starting 15th, but there were the discussions afterwards about Lewis and strategy. I was in the media centre watching when Nico came in for that final stop and we were all hoping Mercedes would do something different. Let Lewis stay out and see what happens. Or give him some supersofts to see what he can do. In the end there was no such excitement and the top three came home in the order they had started.
We now know that Toto Wolff is warning his drivers to get along for the good of the team. It's not hard to see how bad the relationship has become. In that final press conference of the season, the winner of the last three races sat alongside the soon to be crowned three-time world champion, and the man who spoke the most was Kimi Raikkonen...says it all.
What we mustn't forget in all of this is that we have a British three-time world champion. It is a matter of days since the season ended as I write this, but Lewis is already talking about his training for the 2016 season starting next week! Winter is going to fly by, but let's hope not too quickly for the other teams and that we do have some good consistent competition for Mercedes.
Nico may have had the edge in the last three races but the battle gets underway again in Melbourne on March 20 and I can't wait.
RB
