Max Verstappen has dominated the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to take his sixteenth win of the season finishing eight seconds ahead of his championship rival Charles Leclerc. The Red Bull driver never looked back after pulling away and then controlling the race from the start as Leclerc got pass Sergio Perez to seal the runners up stop.
For Leclerc after a season blighted by a mixture of mistakes and reliability issues, it was a race where everything seemed to go right for Ferrari as they took a different strategy to fight for second in the race. Perez meanwhile was left twenty-three seconds behind Leclerc following the last stop.
While the Mexican closed the gap, Leclerc appeared to be more measured on his tyres and that allowed him to keep Perez behind him. Second place is somewhat of a consolation prize as well as the mistakes he has managed to fight back to recover ground in the championship to secure second.
The race can be seen as summing up the season, Red Bull commanding control as they made the better calls and Ferrari while the race was one of their best operationally they just lacked the pace to challenge for victory.
Abu Dhabi for Ferrari was a race where everything went right for the team, they resisted the temptation to switch to a two-stop and went long before fending off Perez following his only stop. Perez was left a second behind his rival when he re-joined with it growing to ten seconds by the chequered flag.
It seemed almost like the roles had been reversed, Ferrari having the better tyre management allowing Leclerc to keep Perez behind and force the Mexican into an extra stop.
Carlos Sainz was fourth ahead of George Russell by ten seconds, Mercedes looked to struggle throughout the weekend but the Englishman was comfortably in fifth following his teammate Lewis Hamilton’s retirement.
Verstappen said “It was a good race. It was all about tyre management. I think we looked after the mediums quite well and then on the hard tyres managing until the end. It’s been really enjoyable to work with the whole team and to be able to achieve something like this.”
Leclerc said, “It is how it is sometimes. Everything can be really close. At the end of the day, I have got to be happy. I gave it all, as a team we gave it all through the season and I am sure we will come back stronger next year.”
Verstappen had already wrapped up the title with the final standings putting him a hundred and forty-six points ahead of Leclerc, with the Ferrari driver sealing second place by three points ahead of Perez.
It was a tough race for Russell who took a five-second penalty for an unsafe release while an hydraulic issue saw Hamilton retire with three laps to go. Russell appeared to surprise the team when he made that stop, which was slow but looked to charge ahead during the closing stages.
That means the seven-time champion has his first winless and pole-less season of his career, ting the record at fifteen with Michael Schumacher. Also only the third time in his career he has finished behind a teammate in the drivers championship and lowest finish in sixth
Hamilton had been on course for fourth when he retired after a drama filled start, on the first lap as Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari passed him at the chicane, which he then cut and held the place. He also picked up damage to his floor, which looks not to have contributed to his retirement in the closing stages.
Just before his retirement, Hamilton had looked to be making his one stop work, as he passed Sainz on the penultimate lap.
Russell also had his struggles he lost a place to the ever-impressive Lando Norris on the opening lap and, after recovering, appeared to surprise his team in the pits and had a subsequently slow pit-stop, and a slow release that cost him five seconds at his next stop.
Russell becomes the third driver to beat Hamilton over the course of a season after Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg, and the first driver to beat him to the Hawthorn Memorial Trophy, awarded to the highest British or Commonwealth driver, since 2013 with Mercedes ninth in a row.
Norris finished his season off in sixth, ahead of Esteban Ocon by a second but it was not enough to allow McLaren to finish ahead of Alpine in the constructors. That was despite Norris’s outgoing teammate finishing ninth and Fernando Alonso retiring from the race.
The Spaniard having his fourth retirement in eight races not how he would of liked to have ended his third stint at the Enstone-based team, before he joins Aston Martin next season.
Lance Stroll finished the race eighth ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel, as they leave the sport, potentially forever. The Canadian driver looked to have the better grip and passed the McLaren.
Vettel looked somewhat like the driver he was a decade ago as all weekend to finish the race in the points on his three-hundredth start. However, it was a frustrating first stint for the four-time champion running a long opening stint he had lost ground but came alive in the closing stint gaining positions.
A goodbye followed with end of season doughnuts, with Alonso and Verstappen, but Hamilton would have almost certainly joined in what has become the ‘champions goodbye’ if he hadn’t retired with his hydraulic issue.
In his post-race grid interview Vettel said, “You know how it is. I wish I could have got a couple more points. I enjoyed the race. Bit of a different warm-up to get to the race but when the lights went off, it was just the race. We could have turned the constructors around.”
“It’s a big day, a big thank you to everyone. Lots of smiley faces which is nice. I’m sure I will miss it more than I feel right now.”
Yuki Tsunoda brought his Alpha Tauri home eleventh the final car on the lead lap, as he finished five seconds behind Vettel. The Alfa Romeo of Guanyu Zhou led the lapped cars ahead of Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Valtteri Bottas, and the two Haas’s of Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen, finishing a lap down.
Hamilton and Latifi both retired with two laps to go because of technical problems, but are classified finishers in eighteenth and nineteenth. Alonso was the only classified retirement, his Alpine stopped with a water leak around half distance.
Related
- Abu Dhabi GP – Qualifying Result
- ABU DHABI GP – Max Verstappen Beats Teammate Sergio Perez By Two-Tenths To Take Pole
- ABU DHABI GP – Max Verstappen Fastest By Three Tenths In Second Practice With George Russell Second
- ABU DHABI GP – Lewis Hamilton leads a Mercedes one-two in first practice ahead of Charles Leclerc
- F1 Today – Abu Dhabi Prixview – 17/11/2022
- PRIXVIEW – Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
