Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: 11 from 17



After wrapping up both the titles in India, they thought 'that's the last win for Vettel and Red Bull'. But no, once again Sebastian Vettel took the checkered flag beating his teammate and pole-sitter Mark Webber by a whopping 30.8 seconds! The hope that Webber would take the flag before his teammate was lost even before the first corner of the grand Prix as Vettel beautifully moved across the track to take the lead and race a race of his own, where Sebastian Vettel was the lone challenger. 

Mark Webber: Outpaced, outraced, and beaten fair and square by his teammate, but nevertheless, finished a strong P2 for Red Bull racing. Mark Webber's bad starts have been endless during his career and this was no different as Nico Rosberg quickly moved in P2 by the end of the first lap, pushing Webber a place down. He fought back and won the top step of only other 2 podium places available (P1 was already sealed). 

Nico Rosberg: He beat the rest! Rosberg, who admitted Red Bull was a bar way too high to even aim, so he settled for "we beat the rest" to finish P3 behind the 2 bulls and way ahead of his teammate Hamilton. 

Lewis Hamilton: After a bad start to the grand prix, Lewis Hamilton not only had to fight his way back, but also bear with excessive tire wear and pass drivers with better strategies around him. Stuck behind Sutil 
and Esteban Gutierrez for almost 10 laps each,unable to pass, Lewis lost majority of his time and finished a poor P7 compared to his teammate in P3. 

Roamin Grosjean: He was tipped to finish on podium this weekend, but the top 3 were strong enough
 not to let his through. But a strong P4 from Grosjean covered for Kimi, who got disqualified from qualifying and didn't last past the first corner on Sunday. 

Kimi Raikkonen: possibly the disappointment of the day was not watching Kimi make his way through the grid. His race lasted only for 10s after which he calmly returned back to the pits and drive off the airport. The 2012 Abu Dhabi GP winner had thought of boycotting the race because of the untimely payment from his team's side. And even today, there's a possibility of Kimi boycotting the US GP and Brazilian GP if lotus doesn't pay him by next week. 

Fernando Alonso: Alonso has a decent start, but a very poor first part of the race. A pitstop shuffle saw the 2 time world champion at the back of the grid, but spent most of his time just chasing and losing time behind all the cars ahead. The 2nd part of the race though, Felipe Massa's wrong strategy call saw him move forward and fight for higher positions where he finished P5. During a move on the Toro Rosso of JEV, Alonso hurt his back, enduring a force of 15G as he jumped a kerb. Immediately Alonso was taken for check ups in the hospital and was cleared the next day. 

Felipe Massa: Felipe Massa outqualified Alonso and seemed to outrace him too as his first leg of the Grand Prix went smoothly. Later, a team order or secretly kept to the public as 'strategy' saw Felipe Massa fall backward gradually offering his teammate a pace in the higher grid. 

Paul di Resta: Paul and his teammate Adrian Sutil were on a winning strategy which saw both the SFIs finish in the top ten.  


11Sebastian VettelRed Bull-Renault55
22Mark WebberRed Bull-Renault5530.82930.829
39Nico RosbergMercedes5533.6502.821
48Romain GrosjeanLotus-Renault5534.8021.152
53Fernando AlonsoFerrari5567.18132.379
614Paul di RestaForce India-Mercedes5578.17410.993
710Lewis HamiltonMercedes5579.2671.093
84Felipe MassaFerrari5582.8863.619
96Sergio PerezMcLaren5591.1988.312
1015Adrian SutilForce India-Mercedes5593.2572.059
1116Pastor MaldonadoWilliams-Renault5595.9892.732
125Jenson ButtonMcLaren55103.7677.778
1312Esteban GutierrezSauber-Ferrari55104.2950.528
1411Nico HulkenbergSauber-Ferrari541 lap1 lap
1517Valtteri BottasWilliams-Renault541 lap0.443
1619Daniel RicciardoToro Rosso-Ferrari541 lap4.323
1718Jean-Eric VergneToro Rosso-Ferrari541 lap31.982
1821Giedo van der GardeCaterham-Renault541 lap24.527
1920Charles PicCaterham-Renault541 lap11.109
2022Jules BianchiMarussia-Cosworth532 laps1 lap
2123Max ChiltonMarussia-Cosworth532 laps4.885
(Courtesy: F1 fanatic)

Celebrating with donuts (free) once again, was Sebastian Vettel who relentlessly bagged another victory with a 31 second lead, giving his haters another reason to hate him - perfection and 7 consecutive wins!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

WHY DON’T WOMEN RACE IN F1?

Image
There are 7 billion people in this world, and there just 22 grand prix drivers. Out of the 22, there isn’t one female racing driver. This does make you think, why aren't there any women Formula One racers? Sexism in motorsport is not new, in fact, it’s it is as old as the sport itself. In a male dominated field of sport such as racing, women, as a group haven’t made their mark yet. And in F1, there has been just one female racing driver to have scored a single point - Lella Lombardi, an Italian racer who raced for March-Ford in 1974 – 75, scored half a point after finishing a good 7 th position at the Spanish Grand Prix of 1975.  Though the breakthrough for a woman was first given to Maria Teresa de Filippis way back in 1958, she failed to impress as much as Lomardi did. But yet, Maria, the former Maserati driver will be remembered as a pioneer for women in motorsport because of her courage and strength to venture into a sport like Formula One in the age when women were tra
Read more

2013 Pirelli Spanish Grand Prix – Lessons we learnt during the weekend

Image
Back to where it all began.. Catalunya. The difference, though, is now we’re going to see racing here. It’s said that the Spanish Grand Prix is where the ‘real season’ starts, because that’s where all the major changes happen, like the upgrades brought in by the teams. But this year, it was an awful lot different. Coming to Catalunya was like the second start to the season. Pirelli, who have been under constant pressure and criticism from RedBull Racing and few other teams, finally decided to make amendments to the hard compound tires, hoping to make it similar to last year’s hard compound. And since Formula One is no more than tyre management now, it looked like a positive step from Pirelli to promote more racing. And the fans loved it! Practice 1 was disrupted by heavy rains and to no surprise, many of the drivers didn’t run. And those who did, unable to hold in the impatience, ran on wet or intermediate tires. The rain did not give any break to the Hard compound
Read more

Countdown to 2014: end season shuffle shenaniganz

Image
There are a lot of reasons we can rewind and reminisce 2013 season. The last season on the V8 engines didn't go as per planned for most of us because there was one man driving with perfection every race - Sebastian Vettel- he was unbeaten, untouchable and dominant. So dominant to such an extent that Red Bull racing didn't need a Mark Webber to win the Constructors at all!  In other words, this German alone could have been a team and finish 2nd in the constructors and won the driver's all alone. But just behind him, half a lap behind were drivers like Alonso, who himself admitted that   "It's always good to know that you are recognised by your peers," Alonso responded, "but I think 2012 was the best in my career.  This season, there were times when I did not do well enough, such as when I could have had a little more performance, or when I made a mistake like in Malaysia." Lewis Hamilton, who made a shift from McLaren to Mercedes, had a phenomena
Read more