Formula One Highlights: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Race day Part 2
Welcome back to the action from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Lap 1 saw a huge incident involving the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher.
The race headed to lap 3 and the safety car was still on track. The order at the top was Vettel, Hamilton, Button, Alonso, and Webber. Meanwhile, Hamilton was caught over the radio inquiring whether his car was okay. It appeared that the Briton was complaining
over the front wing, which was causing him some discomfort handling the car.
The safety car was still circling the Yas Marina circuit as the next lap started. 6 drivers had pit so far, Rosberg, Petrov, Aguersuari, Di Grassi, Senna and Klien. They were all set to run the remainder of the race on the harder compound tyres.
The McLaren team radio sprang to life once again as Hamilton’s race engineer informed him that his tyre temperature was low and that he needed to get some more heat into the tyres. A routine problem as the safety car speed limit often causes tyres to lose
their heat which is why Formula 1 cars are often seen weaving around whenever there is a safety car period.
As the marshals cleared the debris on track, it was announced that the safety car would be in at the end of the lap. Replays of the start showed Vettel nearly clipping Hamilton’s front wing on turn 1.
Was tyre temperature Hamilton’s only worry?
The safety car finally went in at the end of lap 6 and the race resumed. Sebastian Vettel got off cleanly, so did the rest of the pack. The race leader started exercising his dominance over the cars behind as he quickly opened up a 1.1 second gap at the
front. Meanwhile, Robert Kubica got past Adrian Sutil to take 9th place.
While Mark Webber and Fernando Alonso were quite close in the championship, they weren’t that far from each other on track either. A mere 0.5 seconds separated the two drivers. Sebastian Vettel made news yet again, being the quickest man on track. His lead
at the end of lap 8 was 1.2 seconds.
Vettel set another fastest lap, 2 tenths faster than Hamilton. The gap at the front was now 1.5 seconds. Was it a case of the Red Bull performing exceptionally well or the fact that Hamilton was struggling with the front wing he was complaining about earlier?
Turning our attention to the second McLaren bearing Jenson Button, the Briton had pulled a 1.5 second gap over Alonso, evidently, cashing in on the duel between the two championship leaders.
In the constructor’s battle for 6th between Williams and Force India, Barrichello’s Williams was in 7th while Sutil’s Force India was in 10th. As things stood, Williams effectively had the upper hand. Turning our attention
to the battle up front, Lewis Hamilton set the quickest time for the first and second sector, but blotched up the final sector and ultimately failed to set the fastest time for lap 10. The lead duo set almost identical times as the gap at the front was 2.0
seconds.
Felipe Massa finally made his presence felt as he was right up with Webber and was in a position to apply pressure, the gap was just 0.7 seconds. It appeared Webber was struggling for pace and was a whole 2 seconds behind the Ferrari ahead of him.
With Webber ticked off for the time being, it was perhaps Alonso’s turn to turn his attention to the cars ahead of him. Fourth place was all he needed as long as the Australian was behind him but ideally improving his track position gave him margin for error.
11 laps were completed in the final race of the season and we couldn't have asked for a better finale to the season.
We are going to head for a pit stop of our own.
Stay tuned for lap 12 and onwards...
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