Nothing at stake? Why F1 teams are battling for more than prize money in Abu Dhabi

The biggest reward of course is a financial one, with prize money defined by where a team finishes in the constructors’ championship. McLaren and Aston Martin will be fighting over a difference of around £6-7 million between finishing fourth and fifth in the standings, while the four points that currently separate Mercedes from Ferrari in the battle for second place can be valued at around £8 million. But that’s just to one team’s budget.

If you look at it in the context of how closely-matched the two teams have been this season, then you’re seeing a swing of £16m, as one gains that £8m and one loses it.

It’s not just about the money, though. For teams such as Mercedes and Ferrari, you could dismiss the financial side as largely irrelevant because they are going to be able to operate at the budget cap anyway (but try telling that to the bosses and accountants who would certainly prefer that budget to be made up by £8m of prize money and profits to increase).

Where Mercedes has seen value throughout this fight has been in replicating the pressure of battling for a title, following two years of Red Bull dominance. And that’s something it has leaned into all season, with trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin reiterating the importance even when the gap was larger back in Suzuka.

“We definitely want to beat them, and they’ll want to beat us,” Andrew Shovlin said of Ferrari. “Second place is not a world championship, and if we win it we aren’t going to be as crazy as Red Bull are right now [celebrating the constructors’ title], but it is important for us and everyone at the factory wants to achieve that.

“It’s also actually quite good practice, because we haven’t been fighting for a championship for a couple of years, and in our sense we’ve got two cars that are closely matched. We’ve got a very small margin, we’ve got some difficult tracks and some new circuits coming up, and it’s actually quite good for us to just get back into that mindset of racing for championships — there’s only so many points on the table, making sure you can grab as many of them as possible.

“The team is enjoying that challenge. You saw in Singapore how quickly the team gets back into that mindset of aggressively racing for a race win. Certainly we’ll do everything we can and push as hard as we can to get second.”

If we’re honest, Shovlin probably reflects on how things have gone since then and feels Mercedes has shown plenty of weaknesses that need addressing if it wants to win titles again.

The two cars collided in Qatar, costing significant points. Then Mercedes and Ferrari each lost a car to technical infringements in Austin, before apparent set-up issues in Brazil and below-par execution in Las Vegas allowed Ferrari to keep closing in.

It’s hardly like Ferrari has been relentless though, with two failures to start races — in Qatar and Brazil — in many ways being saved by Mercedes’ inability to capitalise and having one car in each of those retire.

And that’s where Red Bull’s level of performance comes into such sharp focus. It’s not just about the car, as dominant as that has been. It’s about the consistency, the fact that only on one occasion have set-up problems left Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez unable to seriously target (and secure) a victory.

In only two races has Red Bull failed to legally see the chequered flag with both cars, compared to three each for Mercedes and Ferrari in the past five races alone.

There’s so much more to a successful F1 team than just the car, or just the driver. It extends far beyond the budget, too, as much as the extra boost in funds can be spent on improving multiple areas.

Whoever comes out on top in the respective fights — with P7 between Williams, AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo and Haas still technically up for grabs between all four — will certainly enjoy the financial gains but will still look longingly at what Red Bull has achieved and know it’s not just the added prize money that is going to bridge the gap over time.

When all of this year’s cars are retired from service and the focus turns completely to the new designs that will hit the track in 2024, that’s where the majority of hopes will be pinned in terms of reeling Red Bull in. But while this weekend’s battles are all about beating another team, they’ll also serve to highlight just where other deficits are that need to be benchmarked against the runaway winners.