@Max33Verstappen storms to dominant #AbuDhabiGP victory. #F1

Verstappen Abu Dhabi GP Victory – Max Verstappen cruised to a dominant record 15^th victory of the season at the Abu Dhabi GP as Charles Leclerc held-off Red Bull’s Sergio Perez to second and wrapped up the runners up spot in the World Driver’s Championship standings.

With the Dutchman in control out-front and the two Silver Arrows in the wars, the main focus was on the strategy fight between one-stopping Leclerc and the charging Perez on a two-stopper in an intense last stint.

When the 58-lap Abu Dhabi GP began, Perez got a great run off the line to look down the inside of pole-sitting Red Bull team-mate Verstappen into the opening corner, but was never a serious threat, whilst Leclerc kept his third-placed starting spot and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton overtook Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz to grab fourth.

Leclerc took a small look at attacking Perez at the turn five hairpin further around the first tour, but the initial action then saw Sainz battling back against Hamilton into turn six at the end of the Yas Marina Circuit’s back straight.

The F1-75 racer got alongside the Mercedes under-braking at the left-hand corner and edged Hamilton off over the kerbs, at the same place, where, like Verstappen last season, the Mercedes went into the run-off area after momentarily going airborne and held fourth place.

As the Red Bull pairing moved comfortably away from Leclerc, who was then being chased by Hamilton, the stewards cleared Sainz of forcing the Briton off the track and instead looked at the Mercedes driver whether he gained an advantage by cutting the turn seven run-off area.

Mercedes, thus, ordered Hamilton to give the position back to Sainz, which gave Leclerc breathing space.

The Monegasque-driver fell back from the leading duo across the early proceedings, before Verstappen began to pull away from Red Bull team-mate Perez and Leclerc started to close in.

Perez was the first driver to stop on the 15^th lap switching the C4 mediums to the C4 hards, whilst Verstappen and Leclerc remained out for five and six tours longer respectively to do the same.

This gave them the tyre life advantage over the Mexican, as Perez also lost some ground battling the one-stopping Aston Martin of Sebastian Vettel with a turn six lock-up and off on his out-lap.

Leclerc re-joined from his pit-stop just in-front of Ferrari team-mate Sainz – another early stopper – and then began to close-in on Perez with a string of solid laps.

The F1-75’s pace was very strong that he got within 1.5 seconds of Perez and was ordered to “box opposite” to the Red Bull on the 33^rd tour – the undercut proving very powerful and leading Perez’s team to stop him on that lap.

Ferrari then asked Leclerc if he could keep his pace and tyre life to the finish on a “Plan C” one-stopper, which the Monegasque-driver believed he could manage to do.

Leclerc’s pursuit to reach Perez brought him to around five seconds back from Verstappen by the time Perez pitted, but the race leader, by now followed the same one-stop strategy, comfortably breezed away over the rest of the Grand Prix to win by 8.771 seconds – offering Perez advice on how his harder tyres were feeling on a longer stint and indicated he could push flat-out until the end.

Perez’s challenge was to close a 20-second gap to Leclerc with 25 tours remaining, with Sainz and Mercedes’ George Russell, who had passed Hamilton in the opening phase when the seven-time world champion struggled for pace and suggested the floor of his F1 W13 racer was broken in his first tour-off, pitting out of his way as they took the two-stop strategy.

Perez therefore had to clear Hamilton’s Mercedes and various tail-enders, with the Mexican catching the back of the W13 on the 45^th lap.

As they flew down the back-straight into turn six, Perez attacked Hamilton but suffered a lock-up again and went deep, which helped the Briton pass back by into the turn nine hairpin – with scenes reminiscent but reversed for their fight in this Grand Prix last season that assisted Verstappen to clinch his maiden world title.

Perez did not make a move at turn six the next tour by, but instead waited for another helping of DRS assistance before diving down the inside of the Silver Arrows – which retired later on after Hamilton’s gears stopped working in a suspected hydraulics failure at turn nine.

At this stage, Perez had a 9.6 second gap to close down Leclerc in 12 tours and both Red Bull and Ferrari at first believed the Mexican would make the catch.

But Leclerc managed his aging hard tyres well and Perez’s pace also started to drop lap-after-lap – his passage not helped by AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly at the sixth corner on lap 56 as the Frenchman chased Williams Racing’s Alexander Albon, which saw Gasly given an angry gesture.

It was close right to the line, as Leclerc held on to keep Perez behind by 1.3 seconds, with Sainz fourth and Russell completing the top five – a potential fight between the duo headed off by the latter needing to take a five-second timed penalty at his second stop after being released into the path of McLaren’s Lando Norris at it’s initial pit-stop after a slow-left rear tyre change.

Norris, who had overtaken Russell on the opening tour before being overcome again in the early proceedings, held-off a fast-charging Alpine of Esteban Ocon to hold sixth by one second.

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll gained later on with the extra grip from the second-stop to finish eighth, whilst Vettel just ran out of laps to reel in also one-stopping Daniel Ricciardo – the four-time world champion finished 0.6 seconds off in tenth at his final Grand Prix and having been frustrated by his strategy meaning running the longest of all in the opening stint and was overtaken by a heap of his rivals.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda finished outside the top ten in 11^th place and ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Zhou Guanyu who took 12^th and the aforementioned Albon who placed 13^th in the classification.

The other AlphaTauri AT03 of Gasly was 14^th and in-front of Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas who ended the race 15^th and the Haas F1 Team pairing Mick Schumacher and Kevin Magnussen who brought up the rear.

The other incident of the Grand Prix was Schumacher clipping Williams Racing’s Nicholas Latifi at turn five on lap 40 and spinning the VF-22 into the outside barriers, from which both were able to continue on.

Williams ordered Latifi to retire on the last tour with an unspecified issue, joining Alpine’s Fernando Alonso as the other retiree – the Spaniard stopping on the 28^th lap dur to a suspected water leak.

2022 Abu Dhabi GP – The Top Three

2022 Abu Dhabi GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #1, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“Was a good race, all about tyre management. Incredible to win again here and 15th win of the season – unbelievable. It’s been really enjoyable to achieve something like this this year, I know it will be hard to replicate but it is good motivation to try and do the same next year.”

2^nd Place – Charles Leclerc, #16, Scuderia Ferrari, F1-75:

“I was 110% from the first lap to the last lap. We had the perfect race; we didn’t have much more today. I knew the only way to beat Checo was with a different strategy. I really hope next year we can do a step forward to fight for the championship – we will push in the winter break to catch them back a little bit.”

3^rd Place – Sergio Perez, #11, Oracle Red Bull Racing-RBPT, RB18:

“It’s how it is sometimes, at the end of the day, I have to be happy as I gave it my all and I’m sure we’ll be back stronger next year. We had great moments; I did struggle a bit with these tyres this year in terms of managing them in the race so I’m sure that is something we can improve for next year.”

9^th Place – Sebastian Vettel, #5, Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant F1 Team-Mercedes, AMR22:

“I enjoyed the race, once the lights go off it was full on race mode. We didn’t go for maybe the best strategy, but overall it was a big day and thank you for the support. So many flags, so many supporting faces. I’m sure I’m going to miss this more than I can think of. I don’t have much more to say, I feel empty, it’s been a big weekend. These last two years have been disappointing to me from a sporting point of view but big for me in my life. I want the other drivers to carry on the good work, I think there are far bigger and far more important things than racing in circles.”

Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2022 Race Results Classification (58 Laps)

* Provisional results

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2022/races/1138/abu-dhabi/race-result.html

Click here for the 2022 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

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