Ferrari Formula 1 driver Charles LeClerc will have to start ten places back in the 2024 F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this weekend, December 6 to 8. Because Abu Dhabi is the final race of the 2024 F1 season, this development likely ends Ferrari’s chances of winning the 2024 F1 Constructors’ Championship.
During Friday’s Free Practice 1 (FP1) session, Leclerc could not start immediately because his car needed a new battery, which exceeded the driver’s energy storage allocation for 2024. Ferrari installed a new battery, and the result is that, regardless of the starting position he earns during Saturday’s Qualifying event, Leclerc will have to start ten places back in Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Why does Leclerc need to start ten places back?
The FIA F1 World Championship Rules and Regulations consist of three parts: Sporting, Technical, and Financial. The provisions have three purposes: safety, competitiveness, and fairness. The last point refers to the FIA’s concerns about wealthier teams taking over the motorsport. The teams are limited to a spending cap, a fixed amount of money they can use to operate the team for an entire season.
F1 race cars can only use a limited number of key components during a season. The limitations apply to power unit components such as combustion engines and energy stores. Without limitations and a spending cap, richer teams could theoretically replace all of the extremely expensive parts of a car for each race. A driver is allowed to use two energy stores (batteries) per season. Because Leclerc needed a third battery, on Sunday, he must move ten places back from whatever starting position he earned during Saturday’s Qualifying event.
Leclerc’s penalty and the Constructors’ Championship
The Constructors’ Championship, awarded to the team that amasses the most Championship points during the season, is the biggest prize in F1 because it determines the amount of money the Formula 1 organization pays the team at the end of the season. All ten teams receive payments, but the first-place team gets the most, with each successively lower-scoring team getting less. The difference between steps in the finishing order can be tens of millions of dollars.
Going into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, McLaren leads Ferrari by 21 championship points. For Ferrari to win the Championship, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will need to place very high in the race, and both McLaren drivers must finish relatively low. That result still could happen, but overtaking, or passing, is problematic in F1 racing, and a 10-place penalty makes Leclerc’s job much harder.
