Esteban Ocon closed the season with the fastest time at the post-season tyre test in Abu Dhabi, where George Russell badly wrecked his Mercedes and did not take to the track again.

The traditional test in Abu Dhabi, which takes place after the last race of the season, is an opportunity for drivers and teams to gather additional information about the tyres, which will not be changed next year, and is also an opportunity for young and inexperienced drivers to accumulate kilometers in the current F1 cars of the future that there is no testing during the season.

The teams had predetermined tyres to test – the car running on the test tyres has 10 sets available, consisting of one C1, one C2, two C5s and three sets each of C4 and C3.

The car for young and inexperienced drivers will have two sets of C3 and C5 available, as well as four sets of C4.

Russell caused the most significant incident when he crashed at turn six, after the longest straight, four hours after the start of the test with a suspected technical failure on his Mercedes car.

The incident caused extensive damage to the right front end of the F1 W14 car and forced Russell to spend the rest of the day in the garage after completing 58 laps beforehand.

It was the second stoppage of the day after an earlier water leak between turns 13 and 14 halted the test, and the third red flag in the final hour was caused by Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa, fourth in the F2 standings this season, who had to stop in his AlphaTauri.

The test started 25 minutes late as no medical helicopter was ready and Sainz topped the morning test for Ferrari ahead of Perez in Red Bull and Piastri in McLaren.

Sainz set a lap of 1:24.799 before handing over the SF-23 to Leclerc, the Spaniard staying on top until he was later taken down by Ocon in Alpine.

The Frenchman finished the day on top with a time of 1:24.393 ahead of McLaren test and reserve driver O’Ward who also drove the MCL60 in the first free practice session last Friday and finished fourth in this year’s IndyCar Championship.

Vesti, the runner-up of this year’s F2 championship, who also drove a Mercedes F1 W14 on Friday, finished third, and Perez finished in the same place as in the last race of the season on this track.

After improvements in the afternoon, Sainz finished fifth for Ferrari ahead of Alonso who drove just 37 laps after sharing the car with Stroll who was 21st.

Third-placed F2 driver Doohan was seventh in the Alpine A523 after also driving the same car on Friday and an hour later taking pole position in Formula 2 which he turned into victory on Sunday.

Shwartzman drove all day for Ferrari and completed 123 laps en route to eighth, while Sargeant, who is still awaiting Williams’ decision on a second driver for 2024, was eighth ahead of Leclerc in the Ferrari.

New Formula 2 champion Pourchaire was 11th behind the wheel of Alfa Romeo ahead of last year’s F2 champion Drugovich in Aston Martin and Tsunoda in AlphaTauri.

Dennis, like on Friday, drove the Red Bull RB19, managed to complete 124 laps and finished 14th ahead of Iwasa in AlphaTauri, who had his first experience in an F1 car (96 laps).

Impressive 18-year-old 2023 F2 debutant Bearman, who finished his first F2 season sixth with four wins, again drove the Haas VF-23 to finish 16th ahead of O’Sullivan in the Williams, this year’s F3 runner-up who drove an F1 car on the track for the first time last friday in FP1.

Fittipaldi was behind the wheel of the second Haas for the tyre test and completed 130 laps, the most of any driver, on his way to 19th place while Russell in the Mercedes finished 20th using C3 tyres in his best lap.

Argentinian Colapinto, fourth in Formula 3 this season and debutant in Formula 2 last weekend, got his first taste of a Formula 1 car after sharing the car with O’Sullivan and finished 22nd ahead of the three regular drivers Ricciardo, Zhou and Albon.

Pre-season testing will last three days (February 21-23) at the track in Bahrain, and the season will begin a week later at the same track (February 29-March 2).

TEST RESULTS

1Esteban OconAlpine1:24.393110
2Pato O’WardMcLaren1:24.662103
3Frederik VestiMercedes1:24.679106
4Sergio PerezRed Bull1:24.715117
5Carlos SainzFerrari1:24.79969
6Fernando AlonsoAston Martin1:24.82737
7Jack DoohanAlpine1:25.038108
8Robert ShwartzmanFerrari1:25.050123
9Logan SargeantWilliams1:25.26356
10Charles LeclercFerrari1:25.37166
11Theo PourchaireAlfa Romeo1:25.42496
12Felipe DrugovichAston Martin1:25.554123
13Yuki TsunodaAlphaTauri1:25.57059
14Jake DennisRed Bull1:25.666124
15Ayumu IwasaAlphaTauri1:25.75396
16Oliver BearmanHaas1:25.779110
17Zak O’SullivanWilliams1:25.84250
18Oscar PiastriMcLaren1:25.930123
19Pietro FittipaldiHaas1:25.940130
20George RussellMercedes1:26.28358
21Lance StrollAston Martin1:26.68150
22Franco ColapintoWilliams1:26.83265
23Daniel RicciardoAlphaTauri1:26.96555
24Zhou GuanyuAlfa Romeo1:27.387106
25Alex AlbonWilliams1:27.82451
Photo: Pirelli

2024 F1 CALENDAR

1Bahrain2 Mar
2Saudi Arabia9 Mar
3Australia24 Mar
4Japan7 Apr
5China21 Apr
6Miami5 May
7Emilia Romagna19 May
8Monaco26 May
9Canada9 Jun
10Spain23 Jun
11Austria30 Jun
12Great Britain7 Jul
13Hungary2 Jul
14Belgium28 Jul
15Netherlands25 Aug
16Italy1 Sep
17Azerbaijan15 Sep
18Singapore22 Sep
19USA20 Oct
20Mexico27 Oct
21Brazil3 Nov
22Las Vegas23 Nov
24Qatar1 Dec
24Abu Dhabi8 Dec
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