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Two great
drivers, two double world champions, both fighting tooth
and nail to secure a third title this year: Fernando
Alonso and Sebastian Vettel both produced stunning
performances yesterday afternoon, the Spaniard finishing
second in a car that definitely was not the class of the
field and the German, making the most of the superiority
of the Red Bull to come from last to third at the flag.
It means that having trailed Vettel by 13 points after
India, Alonso leaves the Gulf just ten points down.
Before this race, Kimi Raikkonen was an outside chance
to be World Champion and today’s result means he is out
of the running. However, the Finn took his and the Lotus
team’s first win of the season. In the second F2012,
Felipe Massa’s race was compromised after a spin
following contact with Mark Webber and the Brazilian
eventually finished seventh.
Late on Saturday night, the Stewards ruled that, having
stopped on track through Force Majeure at the end of
qualifying, Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull did not comply
with the fuel sampling rules and the Red Bull moved from
third on the grid to the back. The team opted to make
changes on his car and the German started the race from
pit lane. This promoted those behind him by one place,
so that Fernando watched the lights go out from sixth
place and Felipe from eighth. The two Ferrari men
immediately made up a place at the start and then the
Spaniard also got past Webber to take fourth after some
nerve wracking wheel to wheel action. Rosberg pitted the
Mercedes with damage and continued, while Hulkenberg
retired the Force India having gone off at Turn 1.
At the front, pole man Hamilton had a slender lead over
Raikkonen, who had got ahead of Webber when the lights
went out, with Maldonaldo third, 0.7 ahead of Fernando.
Then came Webber, Button and Felipe seventh ahead of
Kobayashi. Coming from the back, the championship leader
Vettel was up to eighteenth by lap 2 and fourteenth on
lap 4 and he was one of the few drivers to have started
on the harder tyre.
By lap 6, Hamilton’s McLaren had a 3 second advantage
over Raikkonen in the Lotus, with Maldonaldo a further
1.8 behind, holding up Fernando who was right up with
the Williams. Then came Webber in the Red Bull, with
Button still sixth in the second McLaren, 1.2 seconds
ahead of Felipe’s F2012. The Brazilian had a one second
cushion to Perez’s Sauber. At this point, the top ten
was completed by Kobayashi in the Sauber and Schumacher
in the Mercedes. Vettel? He was now thirteenth.
Lap eight saw the Safety Car appear after a huge crash
involving Karthikeyan in the HRT and Rosberg in the
Mercedes: it looked as though the Indian driver slowed
for Turn 16 earlier than expected and the German
launched his car over the HRT and into the barrier.
Vergne was the first to make a stop under the safety
car, coming in on lap 9 from thirteenth to take on Prime
tyres. Grosjean did the same in the Lotus. While still
behind the Safety Car Vettel appeared to damage the
front wing on the Red Bull on Senna’s Williams and
pitted for a new nose on lap 13.
At the restart on lap 14, Webber mounted a vigorous
attack on Fernando, but the Spaniard held him off,
although this cost the Ferrari a bit of time to third
placed Maldonaldo, while Vettel’s visit to the pits had
dropped him to 21st, but he was soon up to seventeenth,
in a serious dog fight with Grosjean’s Lotus. Webber was
still dangerously within the one second gap required to
activate DRS as he chased Fernando, while Felipe was
having a relatively quiet race in seventh. With Webber
on his tail, Fernando was pushing hard, which meant the
gap to Maldonaldo was beginning to come down although it
was still around 3.5 seconds.
The lead now passed to Raikkonen on lap 20, as Hamilton
had to park his car at the side of the track with a
mechanical problem. It promoted Fernando to third, just
0.6 behind Maldonaldo, while Webber was still a
threatening half second behind the Ferrari. That all
changed on lap 21, as Fernando passed the Williams with
a straightforward move to go second. Felipe was up to
sixth. The threat from Webber diminished as he spun
trying to take third place off Maldonaldo, which dropped
him to seventh, so that Felipe now found himself fifth,
still between Button on fourth and Perez in sixth.
On lap 24, Button got his McLaren ahead of Maldonaldo to
take third, but it was at this point that Perez managed
to squeeze past Felipe, thus relegating the Ferrari man
back to sixth. Felipe was clearly struggling as Webber
was now right on his tail. Lap 25 and Kobayashi pitted,
with most of the front runners apparently planning to
make just one tyre change all race. Lap 26 and Webber
tried to go round the outside of Felipe, the two men
collided and as the Australian came back on the track in
front of the Ferrari, Felipe spun and the team
immediately called him for his pit stop, which he took
at the same time as Ricciardo in the Toro Rosso.
Schumacher came in from eighth on lap 27, as Vettel put
in a race fastest lap to run seventh behind his
team-mate. Felipe was down in fifteenth.
Fernando changed to the Medium Pirelli on lap 29 and
Button and Maldonaldo also came in for fresh rubber.
Perez and Webber came in from second and fourth on lap
30. Race leader Raikkonen finally pitted on lap 31, so
that all the front runners apart from seventh placed
Senna had made at least one pit stop. On lap 32 of 55,
the order was Raikkonen, 1.4 ahead of Vettel, who was
5.9 in front of Fernando, who had Button now breathing
down his neck. The question was now how well everyone
could get to the flag, given that Vettel, having had an
early stop because of that nose damage, would be on much
older tyres than Fernando. Vergne, who had pitted under
the safety car had got up to sixth, but made a stop in
the Toro Rosso on lap 33. Massa’s earlier problems meant
he was down in 13th place.
With 20 laps remaining, Button was putting Fernando
under serious pressure which was actually pushing the
Ferrari closer to second placed Vettel who was called
into the pits for a second stop on lap 37. A thrilling
battle for fourth led to the Safety Car making its
second appearance, as Perez tried to pass Di Resta, with
Grosjean and Webber also getting involved in the multi
car pile-up that signalled the end of the race for the
Australian and the Frenchman. Behind the SC, the order
on lap 40 was Raikkonen, Alonso, Button, Vettel,
Maldonaldo, Kobayashi, Schumacher, with Felipe eighth,
which then became seventh as Schumacher changed tyres.
Lap 42 and Fernando was 1.9 behind the leader Raikkonen
and had Button 0.8 behind him and in terms of the
championship, Vettel was right up with the Englishman in
the sole remaining McLaren. With ten laps remaining,
Raikkonen extended his lead to 3 seconds over Fernando,
but it was the battle behind that held everyone’s
attention, with Button drifting to 1.2 off the Spaniard
has he put all his effort into fending off Vettel.
Felipe was seventh, just under a second behind Kobayashi
with fellow countryman Senna closing on him as his tyres
began to fade. Fernando really put the hammer down in
the final laps, the gap to the Finn in front dropping to
2.2 with six laps to go. Three laps from the end, Vettel
despatched Button and from then on the podium order
remained unchanged. This had probably been the most
exciting race we had seen in the short history of the
Abu Dhabi circuit. In terms of the title race, Fernando
has edged three points closer to Vettel so that the gap
between them is now ten points, with a further fifty up
for grabs as we tackle the final pair of back to back
races in Austin and Sao Paolo, starting in a fortnight’s
time in Texas. Felipe moves up two places to seventh in
the Drivers’ standings. In the Constructors’
classification, the Scuderia is still second – it cannot
aspire to first place – extending its lead over the
third team.
Stefano Domenicali: “Yet another great race from
Fernando in what is an amazing season for him. Today’s
second place came about mainly because of his ability to
get the most and maybe even a bit more than that out of
what we gave him to work with. The gap to the leader in
the classification has come down to ten points and
everything is still up for grabs. Of course, we must do
something extra and better than what we have done to
date to give him a more competitive car. If we had been
offered this gap on leaving Abu Dhabi, immediately after
qualifying yesterday evening, maybe we would have taken
it, but it’s also true that this afternoon, before the
start, our prospects had changed. Definitely, the way
the race played out and the incidents that occured, did
not do us any favours in light of the championship, but
these are circumstances over which we have no control.
The important thing is we have reduced the gap in the
Drivers’ classification in a Grand Prix that was
particularly difficult because, not only did our
performance level not match that of our closest rivals,
but it was actually worse than that of other teams. On
top of that, we have increased our lead over our closest
rival in the Constructors’ championship, which is a good
thing. Ten points is a lot but it can also be seen as
very few. We have a duty to try right to the very last
metre of the final Grand Prix and that’s what we will
do, you can be sure of it.”
Fernando Alonso: “I’m happy with the way this weekend
turned out. It’s true that with Sebastian last, there
was an opportunity to reduce the gap more significantly
but it’s equally true that our performance and our grid
position could have seen us lose points in this Grand
Prix. I repeat, they have the quicker car, we have the
better team. Everyone fights with the weapons they have
at their disposal: we will not manage to turn our car
into the quickest of the pack with a wave of a magic
wand, but we will counter their performance with the
perfection of our team. The simulation put us somewhere
between fourth and sixth and we finished second,
therefore once again this was a more than perfect race,
running at the maximum from start to finish. Sure, there
were a number of unexpected retirements and two
neutralisation periods that did not really come at the
right time or suit us, but these are things beyond our
control. We just had to stay focused on our race and
that’s what we did. Now we go to Austin, a new circuit
for everyone: we have just had a taste of it on the
simulator, but the track is something else. Let’s hope
we can get a good result and put on a good show in an
important country like the United States. Tonight I will
go to sleep thinking the glass is half full rather than
half empty. We must be proud of what we have done, the
work of the mechanics at the track and the engineers who
tried to fine tune the car. I fought from start to
finish: first with Maldonado, then Jenson and, in the
end I tried to go and catch Kimi. I could not relax for
a single lap. The best race of the year? It’s still to
come...”
Felipe Massa: “It was a difficult race for me. In
particular, I suffered on the Softs because of more
degradation than we had expected. On Friday, the long
run seemed much better: we must understand what changed
compared to two days ago. I had problems with the
balance: understeer in the fast corners and oversteer in
the slow ones. The duel with Webber was the vital
moment, as it meant I lost a lot of places at a crucial
point in the race. He tried to go round the outside of
me and we touched. Then he cut the chicane and came back
across the track, forcing me to spin to avoid hitting
him. A shame, because I could at least have finished
ahead of Kobayashi. In any case, I managed to bring home
some points which are important for the Constructors’
championship, as we have increased our lead over
McLaren. At the next race, I too will have the technical
updates that Fernando had here and we hope there will
also be other ones to improve the car’s performance.
However, it’s true that the track characteristics can
alter the balance of power: here we saw that McLaren and
Lotus were very strong, apart from Red Bull of course,
but it’s not certain that elsewhere it will be the
same.”
Pat Fry: “It’s been a difficult and intense weekend and
coming out of it having improved our situation in both
championships compared to the start of it is undoubtedly
positive. There’s no point brooding over what happened:
the Safety Cars did not come at the best times for us,
but there was nothing we could do about it. We had to do
our utmost and, on that front, we’ve got nothing to
reproach ourselves for. Once again, Fernando delivered
an amazing performance, getting everything he could out
of the car, both in qualifying and in the race. When
strategy does not allow for many variables it’s always
difficult to make up places but this evening and eight
days ago in India, he showed what he’s made of. These
two second places are worth much more than the 36 points
they have brought him. Felipe had a more difficult race
than his team-mate, losting precious time because of the
spin, as it left him in a lot of traffic. However, his
six points are valuable for the Constructors’
classification. Once again in this Grand Prix, our race
pace was better than in qualifying: we have to make a
step forward in this area to try and be in with a chance
in the last two Grands Prix of the season. We had
various updates at this race which, to some extent, did
not work as we had expected. We must understand why and
do something quickly because we no longer have much
time. Furthermore, these ten days prior to the final
double header will be crucial to prepare for a Grand
Prix that takes place on a track that is new for
everyone. Whoever is quickest at adapting their car to
it could have an advantage. None of us wants to give up
and everything is still possible.”
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