Abu Dhabi GP: All you need to know

It will be the last race for Fernando Alonso – one of the greatest drivers in history.

The curtain comes down on the 2018 Formula 1 season in Abu Dhabi on Sunday with a race that will be marked by farewells, last chances and new beginnings.

The season ends as it started, with Lewis Hamilton on pole in his Mercedes, although the lap, good though it was, could not match the spectacular effort with which he blitzed the field back in Melbourne in March.

On a track where overtaking is difficult, Hamilton should start as favourite, but a season of phases has entered a new one in recent races – a Red Bull one – so the grand prix will start with all six drivers from the top three teams regarded as potential winners.

Goodbye to a legend

Only two teams are keeping the same driver line-up next season, Mercedes and Haas, so a lot of drivers will be either bidding farewell to their work mates of the last season, or in some cases to F1 for good.

And of course there is one big goodbye – the last race of one of the greatest drivers in history, Fernando Alonso.

Much of the weekend has been focused on the two-time champion, reflecting his stature in the sport.

He was in the pre-event news conference. There was a farewell party for him in the paddock on Saturday evening.

McLaren have done a special livery on their cars and his overalls, reflecting the colours of Spain and his region of Asturias. He has a special helmet colour-scheme, one side the first one he used in F1 and the other the one he has used this year but with gold replacing yellow. He is wearing a special cap. There will be a farewell team photo. And a guard of honour as he heads to the garage for the final time before the race.

He has borne it with good grace, but it’s not what he would have chosen.

“All these tributes are a bit embarrassing for me,” he said. “I’m shier than people think and I want it go by quickly. I would like to be invisible until Monday, but I’ll have to be here and talk a bit.”

In the car, he has maintained his high standards to the end. A peach of a lap in first qualifying – nearly 0.7 seconds quicker than team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne – got him into the second session, and the team were very impressed. And it completed a 21-0 clean sweep of the Belgian this season, a rare achievement.

“The laps were good, definitely good,” Alonso said. “I am happy with the feeling in this last qualifying.

“Sometimes you maximise the lap. Sometimes you realise there could be more potential in the lap or in that corner, that braking. Maybe you lock up the tyres, maybe you had traffic. There is always if, if, if, a couple of tenths here and there.

“But today I was happy with the last run in Q1 that put us in Q2 and also the lap in Q2 so the result and position is what we deserve. But on the personal side I am happy to finish on maximising the lap.”

He has been saying for a while he expected to find Abu Dhabi emotional but he said on Saturday that “the whole weekend has been quite OK so far. A little bit emotional outside the car but inside the car you just put the helmet on and concentrate on the job. It was a normal feeling after qualifying.

“In the race we see how it goes but when you put the helmet on and start to do your job you have so much information from the engineers and so much going on it is quite easy to get into the mood of the race and you are not thinking too much about the situation.”

He doesn’t let up, Alonso. On Monday, he will be in Bahrain doing a car swap “for fun” with Nascar legend Jimmie Johnson, who he has become friends with this year. And after the winter, he has a world endurance championship to win, and the Indianapolis 500 to prepare for.

Beyond that, he says he does not know, but already there is talk of him testing McLaren’s 2019 car at some point, perhaps helping the team at the odd race, and more racing.

“I don’t know what I will do after Indy,” he said on Saturday evening. “I may do a full season in Indycar. I may do a full season in F1. There are a lot of things I may do in motorsport.”

He added earlier in the weekend: “For 2020 I don’t know exactly what I will do, or what will be the plan. Further away, it’s impossible to think – but yeah, who knows? Life is long and beautiful. I will always love Formula 1, so if I will be here in the future as a driver, as a father, as an FIA boss or whatever. I will think.”

What will he miss most?

“I think driving the cars,” he said. “The cars are something special. It doesn’t matter if you’re 14th, fifth or fighting for victory.

“Obviously if you can be on the podium and win, definitely it’s an extra celebration and joy, but when you go out of there for qualifying, or even for free practice, and you’re drive these cars, they are very special, y’know?

“The amount of technology behind these cars would be difficult to replicate in any other series – but on the other side there are negative aspects of F1, especially if you are 18 years here.

“You dedicate your entire life to F1. You have no friends, no family, no free time, no privacy, no wife, no kids, no nothing. It’s just full dedication if you want to succeed. So, I think, I have other priorities right now.”