2010’s grand finale in Abu Dhabi - A setup against Fernando Alonso
After a handful of dramatic and unpredictable results, the 2010 drivers’ title was expected to be decided at the grand finale in Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi holds one of the most luxurious and illustrious circuits of them all, which is known as the Yas Marina Circuit.
Fernando Alonso was leading the drivers’ standings before the race followed by the two Red Bull drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel in 2nd and 3rd places respectively while Lewis Hamilton was a long shot in 4th place
as he was 24 points behind the race leader Fernando Alonso but was still alive in the championship, mathematically.
Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel were 8 and 15 points adrift of the championship leader and it seemed that Mark Webber had more chance than Sebastian before the race weekend. There were many rumours and the team stated that their drivers know that they drive
for the team and if one of them had to sacrifice his championship run for the team, he would probably make the right decision.
It was expected that since Sebastian was looking much faster than his teammate on the track, and Fernando was looking pretty good as well, Vettel might not have the perfect chance of winning the title as the young German needed to win the race and score
at least 15 points more than Fernando. On the other hand, since Mark needed to score just 8 points more than the Spaniard, it was expected that Sebastian might have to let this one go and enable his teammate to win the title.
However, this did not happen. After all, the 2010 championship always had something new in store for us. After the qualifying session, it seemed that Fernando might not have any problem maintaining his lead and allegedly, he would win the title as he qualified
in third place while Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton qualified in 1st and 2nd places respectively.
Things were on an even keel until then as Fernando needed to stick to 3rd place until the end in order to win the title as his top rival Mark Webber had a disappointing qualifying session as he qualified in 5th place.
It seemed that Red Bull had to do more than just perform in order to snatch the title away from Ferrari. Therefore, according to a number of reports, Red Bull secretly decided to pit Mark Webber earlier than the rest of the leaders. Yes, it is quite stupid
and you would have to be Wile e Coyote to follow this dumb move.
However, the team made this ridiculous pit stop in the 12th lap and apparently, Ferrari was dumb enough to follow it. The team came out of the pit garage with their equipment and it seemed that the team was going to throw their championship away.
But Ferrari was not as dumb as we though after all. They pitted Felipe Massa and it was quite clear that they wanted to experiment with their strategy in order to secure the Spaniard’s supposed championship run.
Eventually, even after throwing Felipe Massa as a lamb for slaughter, the team proved that they are smarter than everyone and they pitted Fernando Alonso in the 16th lap. Fernando moved to the back of the field and struggled throughout the race
even though the team was aware that Felipe and Mark, both, were struggling at the back and pitting earlier was clearly not the best move.
At that moment, Christian Horner, Red Bull’s team boss looked like d**k Dastardly as his scheme worked perfectly for his team as they pitted Sebastian Vettel according to their usual strategy around the 25 lap mark and secured the drivers’ title along with
the constructors’ title.
However, one has to feel for Webber, did Red Bull really set him up? Or is it just the media that wants more out of a stupid mistake two teams made at the same time?
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