Start, Yas Marina, 2019

Rate the race: 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 (3%)
  • 9 (1%)
  • 8 (6%)
  • 7 (23%)
  • 6 (27%)
  • 5 (16%)
  • 4 (12%)
  • 3 (7%)
  • 2 (5%)
  • 1 (2%)

Total Voters: 177

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1 = ‘Terrible’, 10 = ‘Perfect’

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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39 comments on “Rate the race: 2019 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix”

  1. A decent race for YMC’s standards, and quite a bit of variation in strategies as well.

  2. What a great job the TV director did! Completely missed everything that happened between Sainz and the Renaults in the last laps.

    1. But he showed the fireworks at the chequered flag, so bonuses all around for him and his team.

      1. Sadly, this season was a joke from this point of view. Given Sainz´s overall position and an absolutely tremendous job of getting McLaren to the sixth in the overall standings (which is by the way their best individual result since 2012), he got probably the least amount of screen time this season. It´s really questionable, but big boys probably got covered also this aspect of F1.

  3. I am tempted to give this race a 10 just for its artistic value of summarizing this entire season. A couple of nice moments in an utterly dull sandwich.

  4. 3 – It literally put me to sleep.

    1. Same here. I gave it a much deserved 1.

      1. Count me in this group.

    2. I gave it a 4 and that was feeling generous. I would give the same for the entire year.

  5. F1.5 was an absolute thriller.

  6. I really liked the “experiment” we got of having half a race without DRS. Sure, it hurt the Renaults+McLarens as well as Bottas. And it might have gotten tedious with blue flags later on too. But let’s be honest, without it we finally saw some interesting passes going on here, and I’m sure we might have seen more of that later on as well.

    To me it proves, that F1 doesn’t really need DRS at all tracks even with these cars, and it should really show Liberty that they should leave it deactivated from 2021 completely. Maybe even experiment with toning it down in 2020 already too.

    1. @bascb Agreed.

      Something that Brundle brought up as well was that without DRS the field seemed more compacted & we had more closer fighting but that as soon as they enabled it it just strung the field out as passing became a bit too easy & we were seeing a bit less fighting through the mid part of the race.

      It was fun without DRS seeing drivers actually having to be a bit creative, Looking to overtake in different places (We saw a few into T5 for instance) & work on positioning there cars rather than just waiting for the straights.

      An issue was that I was watching some of the OnBoards & during the No-DRS phase there was some really good racing going on in the mid-field which we weren’t seeing on the world-feed. Same was true on the last lap.

      1. +1, gentlemen.

      2. Yeah, there were at least 2 fights and at times even 3 going on both in the back field and between the renaults-Mclarens throughout the race, felt really satisfying

      3. Yep, well said @bascb and @stefmeister, I wouldn’t mind another server crash in Bahrain (not so sure about Melbourne, and anyway surely they will make sure it doesn’t happen at the opening race, but in the Bahrain heat, maybe ;-).

    2. @bascb – seconded, for both your 2020 and 2021 suggestions.

    3. I’m not convinced yet. I agree it was nice to watch but I believe it turned out better because of the surprise factor. If teams knew it would actually be more boring I think. More trains going round (Petrov). The race would be even more decided by pit strategy and less by track action. Don’t get me wrong, the root of the problem is too much aero-dependency. I see DRS as the slightly lesser evil I guess.

      I’d love to see the Max vs Charles battle without DRS though..

      1. Yeah, I am sure that played a factor, teams would have focussed even more on getting 1 stoppers to work if they had known that they couldn’t blaze through the field quite as easily Baasbas

  7. Nothing spectacular but actually a good race with some decent racing. Verstappen’s pass on Leclerc a standout moment, seemed to catch Leclerc unaware, feisty attempted rebuttal from the latter. That’s a Hamilton grand slam, right? If so, takes him to 6, past Schumacher and Ascari, 2 behind Jim Clark. Superb performance over the weekend. Still setting the bar higher.

  8. It was nice the first 18 laps. After that… meh.

  9. A 7 for me…good start and good end…and lots of tyre savings in between that were not good….not sure why the fuel problem has to be looked at after the race for leclerc..if disqualified he has taken a podium away from some driver..and he shouldnt have been up there…..also and someone can probably tell me…could they not have called him back in the pits and rectified the issue…even if he had started from the pit lane???

  10. First 18 laps was a bit of a test of a non DRS race.

  11. I wished it to be epic, but as usual got a meh-race.
    7 with a huge stretch, just for that Fastest lap by Lewis.

  12. A 7, would have been a 9 if they hadn’t fixed DRS.

  13. 6 for me, was never going to set the world on fire but interesting strategies and exchanges on team radio. Slightly annoyed how long the tv cameras stayed with no44 after crossing finish lane when there was still a lot going on. Nice midfield battle too.

  14. Blaize Falconberger (@)
    1st December 2019, 15:51

    7/10 for me and a podium of great drivers to end the season. I expect these guys will dominate 2020.

  15. 4. Really bad, one of the worst races in the last 3 years.

  16. That was incredibly dull but expectedly so for that track.

    Made worse by the TV director focusing on watching Hamilton drive around on a virtually empty track alone while Perez, Norris, Ricciardo, Sainz and Hulkenberg were fighting. Like we missed that entire exchange.

  17. 2/10 snooze fest.

  18. 4/10, it wasn´t particularly great race. Thumbs up for the experiment without DRS which could open eyes of some people (Hulkenberg holding off Bottas suddenly meant that the big boys could also have a hard time and DRS is clearly another advantage they are given), thumsbs up to the fair fights we have seen. I get a feeling this season was packed with great action but sadly, the overall feeling kinda wears off when the title fight is so one-sided and decided practically after six or seven races.

    1. @pironitheprovocateur Wrong. DRS is not an advantage. It’s small compensation for a big disadvantage.

  19. It depends on what I’m rating it on.

    There were some fantastic midfield battle gaps to spice up the race.

    However, we didn’t get to see half of it due to diabolical TV direction.

    7 or an 8 if we actually got to see the on track battles, but in the end, a 6, because we didn’t.

  20. A mediocre race that for Yas marina is great. It’s a five but I give a bonus point for Norris radio. How can you fix a problem like Yas Marina?

  21. It was good without drs but they had to have it… Went from decent to crap faster than a Fatman eats a cheeseburger. 2/10

    1. The failure of the DRS said a lot … passing? Sure! Only interesting things were Leclerc’s Ferrari fuel foolishness (unanswered), Sainz getting an unseen point, and … did I mention the DRS deal? Oh, and Lewie won EVERYTHING!

  22. Well, it was almost a classic for Yas Marina, but I still wouldn’t call it great as a race, though part of it was indeed the direction missing, as usual especially for this season, most of the midfield fights, including Sainz’ pass on Hulkenberg for sixth in the WDC/best of the rest honours. I do have to admit to not being as enthusiastic about a Bottas coming from far behind as I would have been with Verstappen or Leclerc, as the question ‘will he pass X by the end of the race’ has grown to be a default of well, no, probably not.

    Also, because I ended up having to watch it delayed by an hour, it missed a bit of the interactive feeling for me, which makes it a bit hard to judge. Also (sorry, bit of a rant), boy am I glad I have Ziggo Go on my phone from my Dutch mobile contract+mothers Ziggo internet in NL; just saw Timo Glock happy with another good year of commenting at RTL, and while he is indeed a highlight, their planning for commercial breaks sometimes seem deliberately placed to miss the important pitstops and fights, though it probably is just their infernal length and amount (how many split-screen ones in the last ten laps??) that make it seem so; admittedly, Brazil was even worse, I think they missed all decisive pit-stops and at least half of the moves, including some bc. others were being repeated … luckily that was just me rewatching the recording after the fact, or I’d have been very annoyed.

  23. The race had a few entertaining moments but it was generally a little dull. Even when there were two cars close together at the front the outcome of the situation was never really in doubt. Some interesting midfield racing but we did not see all of it as others have commented.

    I was torn between a 5 or 6 but went for the lower rating. Yas Marina is a pretty poor circuit though so it’s never going to produce a very entertaining race. It’s a shame that the final race of the season is held here I think. I would prefer it to be in Brazil like it used to be.

  24. First race this season I didn’t watch until the end. So boring, such a waste of time.
    They pay millions to have the last race of the season, but we could well do without this boring circuit.

Comments are closed.