@Max33Verstappen takes dominant victory in season-closing #AbuDhabiGP. #F1

Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen claimed his second victory of 2020 in a flawless drive at the season-closing Abu Dhabi GP with Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton second and third respectively.

When the 55 lap Abu Dhabi GP began, pole-sitter Verstappen made a great start covering Bottas, with Hamilton coming under pressure from McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Hamilton just held his fellow British-compatriot off and held onto third. Behind, Norris started to fall under pressure from Red Bull’s Alexander Albon.

By the second lap, Verstappen was already over a second clear of Bottas, who once again was struggling to warm up the C4 yellow-branded medium tyres and get them going.

The race rapidly settled down, with the front-three runners in sequence as they were on the grid, as Verstappen quickly pulled a healthy lead to the following Mercedes.

By the fourth tour, Verstappen’s gap was 2.2 seconds, as he and Bottas ran in the 1:42’s, whilst Hamilton fell back – lapping in the 1:43’s.

Verstappen increased his lead to three seconds over the next five tours but had to give up that gap when the race was stabilised – first with the deployment of the virtual safety car, then a full course safety car – after Racing Point’s Sergio Perez was forced to retire early due to a transmission failure exiting turn 19 on the ninth lap.

The Mexican, who was climbing his way up from 19^th place on the grid following his pre-Grand Prix penalty due to fresh power-unit component changes, peeled off the circuit just passed the left-hand corner under the W Hotel in the final sector after losing drive in his last outing for the Silverstone-based squad.

The top three instantly pitted – then under the virtual safety car- to swap their mediums for the C3 white side-walled harder compounds, with the situation upgraded to a full course caution to recover the Racing Point RP20 as it could not quickly be removed out of the way.

This meant Verstappen’s gap was cut, but the Dutchman quickly set about rebuilding the lead after the Grand Prix resumed on lap 14 – moving clear by 1.4 seconds in the next tour.

The top three were then able to run in the 1:41’s as they pulled clear from Red Bull’s Albon, who passed McLaren’s Norris shortly before Perez retired, with Hamilton again falling behind Mercedes team-mate Bottas.

Verstappen kept building his gap, despite concerns about making his harder rubber last to the end, during the next stage of the Grand Prix, where the Red Bull driver was able to regularly lap in the low 1:41’s whilst the Mercedes pairing fluctuated between the mid-high 1:41’s.

By the 35^th lap, Verstappen’s advantage hit eight seconds, as he stuck to controlling the conservative way to treat his front and rear tyres to maintain the balance the Dutchman was enjoying.

Although the gap between Verstappen and Bottas flowed fractionally as they passed through tail-enders, with the former concerned about vibrations he was feeling as his tyres continued to wear further with 10 laps remaining, but the Red Bull driver never felt under threat from behind.

Verstappen claimed the Abu Dhabi victory by 15.976 seconds after remaining in the 1:41’s as the Mercedes duo regularly dropped back into the 1:42’s, with Hamilton wounding up 2.4 seconds behind Bottas on his return following missing the Sakhir GP due to coronavirus.

The seven-time World Champion closed in on his team-mate during the closing stages of the Grand Prix, but the Briton never looked close enough to make a move and fell back on the final tours.

Albon ended the race 1.5 seconds behind Hamilton in fourth place, closing in rapidly as the laps flew to the finish with Norris leading McLaren team-mate Carlos Sainz (who raced in his final Grand Prix for the Woking-based squad before he moves to Ferrari for 2021) as they came home fifth and sixth, respectively.

McLaren secured third place in the Constructors Championship, although Sainz is currently under investigation for running slowly in the pit-lane during the virtual safety car when running in-front of Racing Point’s Lance Stroll, before he arrived for the second part of the Woking-based outfit’s double-stacked pit-stop.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo came from 11^th on the grid to take seventh place, not stopping under the virtual safety car to jump up the order and ran long on the hards he started the Grand Prix on.

In his last outing for Renault, Ricciardo was able to show strong pace in his initial stint, but after he stopped for a set of mediums with 16 laps remaining, the tyre advantage the Australian had was not big enough to close in on Sainz, whom he will be replacing next season at McLaren.

Ricciardo posted the fastest lap on the final lap with a 1:40.926 to clinch the bonus point on offer.

Scuderia AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly was eighth, putting a bold pass on Stroll’s RP20 at turn 11 just after the mid-way point of the Grand Prix, with the other Renault of Esteban Ocon moving ahead late on to finish ninth.

Stroll thus completed the top 10 and in-front of AlphaTauri’s Daniil Kvyat who came home 11^th.

Alfa Romeo Racing’s Kimi Raikkonen took 12^th place and ahead of Ferrari pairing Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel who were 13^th and 14^th respectively with the latter in his last race for the Scuderia before moving to Aston Martin Racing in 2021.

Williams Racing duo George Russell and Nicholas Latifi finished 15^th and 17^th respectively with Alfa Romeo Racing’s Antonio Giovinazzi splitting the two in 16^th.

Haas F1 Team’s Kevin Magnussen ended his final race in Formula 1 taking 18^th and in-front of team-mate Pietro Fittipaldi who came home two laps down at the rear.

Abu Dhabi GP – The Top Three

Abu Dhabi GP Winner – Max Verstappen, #33, Aston Martin Red Bull Racing-Honda, RB16: “Yeah it was really enjoyable. The car had a really good balance, if you get the start you can control the pace and it makes your life a bit easier. I’m going to enjoy the podium, then I’m going to enjoy going home.”

2^nd Place – Valtteri Bottas, #77, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+: “I think Red Bull were too quick today, which was a surprise, we thought the race pace was pretty even. I feel I did a solid race from my side; no mistakes and I couldn’t get more out of the package today.”

3^rd Place – Lewis Hamilton. #44, Mercedes AMG Petronas Motorsport, F1 W11 EQ Power+: “You can’t win them all. I think considering the past couple of weeks I’ve had, I’m generally happy with the weekend. Congratulations to Max. That was a really hard race for me physically. All year I’ve been fine, today I wasn’t.”

Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2020 Race Results Classification (55 Laps)

* Provisional results. Note – Ricciardo scored an additional point for setting the fastest lap of the race.

https://www.formula1.com/en/results.html/2020/races/1061/abu-dhabi/race-result.html

Click here for the 2020 Formula 1 World Driver’s (Top 10) and Constructors Championship Standings.

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