Hamilton asserted his superiority on Saturday, securing pole
position by a margin of three tenths of a second from Mark Webber. Vettel began
qualifying on the back foot to begin with (having missed final practice because
of a brake problem) and could do no better than third place in the final part
of qualifying; this position was immediately thrown into doubt as Vettel was
ordered by the Red Bull team to park his car on his in-lap after setting his
final lap time.
After hours of suspense, it was finally revealed that – in
nearly identical fashion to Hamilton at Catalunya earlier in the year – Vettel’s
car did not have sufficient fuel left in the tank to complete the lap and
provide the minimum one-litre fuel sample to the FIA stewards. That meant the
German would be sent to the back of the grid, although the team opted to break parc fermé
conditions to modify the car’s setup to make Vettel’s job of re-gaining the
lost ground somewhat easier despite the added penalty of a pit-lane start.
That promoted Pastor Maldonado, whose Williams seemed very much at
home around the Yas Marina circuit, into third position, with Raikkonen joining
the Venezuelan driver on the second row. Jenson Button started fifth ahead of
Alonso, whose Ferrari was not looking competitive in a single lap, Nico Rosberg’s
Mercedes and Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari.
As proceedings got underway with the sun beginning to descend in
the background, Hamilton made a clean start to lead the way into the first
corner. Raikkonen made an excellent start from fourth on the grid to sweep
ahead of Maldonado and Webber, who bogged down particularly badly, to take
second place as Alonso made his way past Button into fifth. That became fourth
place when the Ferrari driver steamed his way past Webber along the second of
the two long back straights on the first lap.
Behind, drama was already beginning to unfold as disaster struck
almost immediately for the Force India team – Nico Hulkenberg became the first
casualty of the evening as teammate Paul di Resta inadvertently squeezed him into
the side of Bruno Senna’s Williams. Di Resta had to pit due to a puncture,
whilst Senna continued at the rear of the pack before coming to blows with a recovering Vettel as the
championship leader lost a front wing endplate in minor contact with the
Williams.
Vettel would be assisted in his efforts to make up for lost time
by an appearance by the Safety Car on lap 9, caused by a frightening clash
between Rosberg and Narain Karthikeyan. Rosberg had already been into the pits
after a collision between him and Romain Grosjean necessitated a front wing
change (the Franco-Swiss would lose even more ground to replace a punctured
front-right tyre). Rosberg was bearing down on an ailing Karthikeyan at the
flat-out turn 15, whose HRT was slowing due to hydraulic issues, and simply
launched over the back of the Indian’s car and into the retaining barrier at
tremendous speed.
Both men would thankfully walk away unharmed, but the shower of
debris meant the Safety Car had to be deployed for the marshals to clear the
track. Hamilton led the way at this stage from Raikkonen, Maldonado, Alonso,
Webber, Button, Massa and the Sauber pair of Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez who
had succeeded in avoiding the first corner carnage. Vettel was already up to
twelfth place by this stage, but he would pit to replace his front wing before
the restart as he picked up more damage hitting a DRS marker sign in avoidance
of the slowing Daniel Ricciardo, the next car ahead in the procession following the Safety Car.
When the race got back underway on lap 15, Hamilton immediately
began to put some distance between himself and Raikkonen. With a three second
lead over the Finn after just three green flag laps, it seemed as if a fourth
win of the season was certainly within reach. However, disaster was about to
strike for the Brit, as on lap 20, his McLaren ground to a halt, much as it did
from a commanding position at Singapore, due to a fuel pressure problem.
That gave Raikkonen a lead of around five seconds from Maldonado,
who was holding up Alonso, Webber and Button behind due to a KERS problem.
Alonso made his move on Maldonado on lap 21 with the help of the second DRS
zone to move into second place at turn 11, and two laps later Webber lined up
the Williams driver at the same place. Attempting a move around the outside,
the Australian turned in on Maldonado, who held his line, and pirouetted his
way down the order as contact was made.
While Button executed a clean overtake on Maldonado at turn 11 to
take third place on lap 24, this time taking the slightly less risky inside
line, Webber now found himself in seventh place behind Perez, who had already gone by teammate Kobayashi before making short work of Massa immediately after Webber's spin. The Red Bull driver was in a position to make a move on the
Brazilian driver on lap 26, but as Webber tried to go around the outside at
turn 11 once again he cut the following chicane, leading Massa to spin as he
tried to avoid the re-joining Red Bull.
Having dropped further places as a result, Massa pitted at the end
of the lap to switch from soft to medium compound tyres, with teammate Alonso
the first of the leaders to do so on lap 28. Button and Maldonado pitted one
lap later, Perez and Webber did likewise after another lap, and Raikkonen was
the last of the leaders to change his tyres on lap 31. The Finn re-joined the
circuit with his lead narrowly intact from Vettel, who had made his way up to
second position after all the other drivers ahead of him made their pit-stops.
Since switching from medium to soft compound tyres during the
first Safety Car period, Vettel had been among the fastest cars on circuit.
In theory, the Red Bull team could have attempted to get their man
to the finish on that set of tyres, which would have been 42 laps old by the chequered
flag, but instead chose the more prudent option of bringing in the
reigning champion for a fresh set of soft tyres on lap 37.
That left Vettel in fourth position behind race leader Raikkonen,
Alonso and Button. The pack would be closed up once again on lap 39 as the Safety
Car made another appearance, this time due to an incident concerning the battle
for fifth place. Grosjean and Di Resta had risen up the order despite their
first lap travails, having stopped again under the first Safety Car period. Di
Resta was able to pass Grosjean in the second DRS zone, but chaos unfolded as
Perez tried to follow the Scot through.
Moving to the outside of the Lotus on the approach to turn 11,
Perez succeeded in overhauling Grosjean before attempting to outmanoeuvre Di
Resta at the following chicane. Di Resta was forced to cut the corner to avoid
a collision, whilst Perez ran wide before being hit by the hapless Grosjean as
the Sauber returned to the racing line. Webber was also caught out as the
stricken Lotus collected the embattled Red Bull driver, bringing an abrupt end
to both Webber and Grosjean’s races.
Once the Safety Car peeled in at the end of lap 42, Raikkonen wasted no time in getting away from
Alonso, even setting the fastest lap of the race so far on the first green flag
lap. After several laps however, the Ferrari driver was able to peg the gap
before steadily reducing the 2007 champion’s advantage during the dying stages:
a 2.2 second deficit on lap 50 had shrunk to just one second as the penultimate
lap began and it seemed as if Alonso could deny the Enstone outfit
an overdue first victory of the season.
Raikkonen was nonetheless able to respond on the final lap, crucially keeping Alonso just out of the reach of the DRS zone, and crossed the finish line to
take the first win since his comeback and his 19th in total. For all
of Vettel’s dramas, Alonso could only claw back three points from the German in the title race as
Vettel found his way past Button at turn 11 on lap 52 to take the
final podium position – an incredible feat considering his pit-lane start.
Behind Button finished Maldonado, who after the contact with
Webber drove cleanly to bag another decent haul of points for Williams with
fifth position. Kobayashi likewise took advantage of the incidents ahead of him
to take a creditable sixth ahead of Massa and Senna, who rounded out an
excellent day for Williams. Di Resta would finish the day in ninth place after
making a second pit-stop during the latter Safety Car period, while the final
point went the way of Toro Rosso’s Ricciardo who was another driver to benefit
from others’ misfortunes.
Michael Schumacher had been on course for eighth position before a
late puncture dropped him to eleventh, making it the fourth consecutive race
that Mercedes has failed to score; the Brackley-based team will have to work
hard to ensure Sauber doesn’t take fifth place in the constructors’ standings
with two races to go. The second Toro Rosso of Jean-Eric Vergne came home
twelfth after being passed late in the race by the recovering Schumacher.
Behind, Heikki Kovalainen came within one place of re-taking the
all-important tenth place in the constructors’ with a thirteenth place finish
ahead of Timo Glock’s Marussia, Perez – who pitted for repairs after the
contact with Grosjean before returning to serve a ten-second stop/go penalty
for causing the incident – Vitaly Petrov in the second Caterham
and Pedro de la Rosa in the sole surviving HRT. Charles Pic was the final name
on a long list of retirees, his Marussia suffering another engine failure.
For all its reputation as a circuit where processions are the
norm, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix had it all: wheel-to-wheel action, suspense, drama,
controversy, numerous retirements, an eighth different winning driver of the
season and a sixth different winning team. Perhaps the most sensational of all
however was the way in which Vettel fought back after such disastrous fortune
on Saturday – it was the drive of a champion, and if the man from Heppenheim
does indeed secure a third world title, his drive at Abu Dhabi will surely go
down as the clincher.
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