Vettel equalled Nigel Mansell’s nineteen-year old record of
fourteen pole positions in one season by coming out on top of a closely fought
qualifying session on Saturday. Hamilton lost out by just over a tenth of a
second to share the front row with the Red Bull driver, with his McLaren
teammate Jenson Button lining up third. Mark Webber qualified in fourth
position, ahead of the Ferrari duo of Alonso and Felipe Massa.
As the race began in the evening sunlight at the glamorous
Yas Marina circuit, Vettel made the perfect getaway to lead from the McLarens
of Hamilton and Button. However, on the exit of the very first turn of the
race, the new champion suddenly lost control of his car as his right-rear tyre
instantly deflated, sending him into the tarmac run-off as the rest of the
field swarmed past. He was able to eventually limp back to the pits with three
wheels on his Adrian Newey-designed wagon, but the damage done to his rear suspension
was sufficient to warrant Vettel’s first retirement of 2011.
This left Hamilton to lead the way from teammate Button and
Alonso, who made his way around the outside of Webber to take what would soon
become third place at the first corner. Alonso was also quick to deprive Button
of second place as he out-dragged the Brit down the long back straight, but by
this stage Hamilton had already pulled out a gap of around two seconds over his
former arch-rival.
The ease with which this manoeuvre was carried out was
explained by Button reporting a suspected KERS failure a couple of laps later;
indeed Webber then looked as if he would imminently pass the ailing McLaren.
However, despite the DRS zones providing Webber with a considerable
straight-line speed advantage, the Australian was unable to make a move that
stuck. This battle for third place continued all the way to the first round of
pit-stops, but Webber dropped behind Massa into fifth place after an
uncharacteristically poor stop from the Red Bull mechanics.
Meanwhile, Hamilton and Alonso both stopped on lap 16 for a
fresh set of soft compound tyres, with the gap between the two fluctuating
between around two and five seconds during the second stint of the race as a
result of the McLaren’s propensity to both heat up and wear out its tyres
faster. Button was by this stage around ten seconds in arrears of Alonso, with
Massa and Webber forming a close train behind. Again, Webber was never able to
make a pass on Massa that lasted, and his tyre wear led to his Red Bull team
trying an alternate strategy to clear the Brazilian.
Webber made an early second pit-stop on lap 35, but instead
of making the mandatory change to medium tyres, the Australian was equipped
with another set of softs, necessitating a third stop on the penultimate lap of
the race. The extra pace of the soft tyres in relation to the mediums allowed
Webber to pass both Button and Massa to reach third place, but his final
pit-stop dropped him back behind Button. He was however able to remain ahead of
Massa, thanks in no small part to the Ferrari driver spinning his car and
subsequently costing himself the chance of picking up a season-best fourth
place.
Back at the front, Ferrari made a valiant attempt to wrest
the lead of the race away from Hamilton by leaving Alonso to make his switch to
hard tyres three laps later, but it was to no avail as the Spaniard couldn’t
quite build the margin required to stay ahead after his final stop. This left
the way clear for Hamilton to take his seventeenth career victory, with Alonso
and Button, whose KERS allegedly came back to life midway through the race,
completing the podium. Webber held on to fourth place from Massa, whilst Nico
Rosberg did a solid job to finish in sixth place for Mercedes just a few seconds
further back. Michael Schumacher came home seventh in the sister car after
finally triumphing in a race-long battle with Force India’s Adrian Sutil,
whilst the one-stopping Paul Di Resta in the second Force India took ninth and
Sauber’s Kamui Kobayashi took his first point since the German Grand Prix with
tenth place.
Sergio Perez just missed out on the final point after
dropping back late in the race courtesy of a KERS failure, finishing in eleventh ahead of Rubens
Barrichello for Williams, whose engine problems in qualifying obliged him to
start the race from the very back of the grid, and Vitaly Petrov who suffered a rather anonymous race for the Renault team. Pastor
Maldonado in the second Williams who lost the chance to score points after
being hit not only with a drive-through penalty but also a thirty-second time penalty for ignoring blue flags; Jaime Alguersauri for Toro Rosso and Bruno Senna for Renault were next up after both being penalised for the same infraction. Heikki Kovalainen drove
another fine race for Lotus in seventeenth, beating teammate Jarno Trulli as
well as Virgin’s Timo Glock and Hispania’s Vitantonio Liuzzi, though the latter pair’s
respective teammates Jerome D’Ambrosio and Daniel Ricciardo both retired due to
mechanical problems. Sebastien Buemi may have also scored points if
not for an unfortunate gearbox failure after battling with Di Resta at the
start of the race.
Just one round remains on the F1 calendar before 2011 draws
to a close – the famous Interlagos circuit in Brazil. With Hamilton seemingly
back to his brilliant best, he will surely be eager to prove he has what it takes to beat Vettel
in a head-to-head battle. That will certainly be something that isn’t to be
missed.
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