World Champ takes chequered flag half a minute ahead of
team-mate.
World Champion Sebastian Vettel scored his seventh
straight victory of the season on Sunday with a dominant performance in the Abu
Dhabi GP.
The German wrapped up his fourth straight title in India
last weekend and while the end was rather less lofty seven days on, the means
were just as impressive. The only obstacle in Vettel's way was the presence of
his Red Bull team-mate Mark Webber on pole position, but the 26-year-old duly
overcame him at the earliest available opportunity.
He then put his foot down and simply drove into the
distance, with Vettel's ability to maintain his speed whilst also managing his
tyres once again very much to the fore. It was a virtuoso display in that
regard, the 26-year-old's early advantage such that he held on to his lead
after making his first pit stop.
"The car was absolutely brilliant, absolutely
brilliant," Vettel told Sky F1's Martin Brundle on the podium afterwards.
"There's not much more to say. It was flying at some stages, at least it
felt like it. Massive gaps - a big surprise."
Asked for his reaction, Webber said: "The start
wasn't great. Nico got an unbelievable start and Seb's was better than mine.
"In the first stint, [I was] just not strong enough
on the soft tyres, Seb got a very, very good gap.
"After that the race started pretty well for me, but
Seb by then was gone. He was in another category at the front."
Webber trailed home half a minute behind, with Nico
Rosberg claiming the final podium position for Mercedes ahead of Lotus's Romain
Grosjean - and it's fair to say that both drivers enjoyed rather better
fortunes than their respective team-mates.
Lewis Hamilton's race never really recovered after a poor
start. In fact, he was on the back foot on the grid after brake vibrations
forced Mercedes' mechanics to affect hasty repairs. Hamilton then struggled in
traffic after making his first pit stop, getting stuck behind Sauber's Esteban
Gutierrez first and then Force India's Adrian Sutil.
Hamilton's efforts to pass Sutil at one stage resulted in
him losing another place to Ferrari's Felipe Massa; if Vettel was serene out
front then the battle for the minor points places was frenetic indeed, as
different strategies came into play.
Ferrari appeared to have placed both their drivers on a
one-stop strategy but in the event both Massa and Fernando Alonso couldn't make
their tyres last. Alonso finished fifth and was later cleared by race stewards
of any wrongdoing after his second stop almost resulted in a high-speed collision
with Jean-Eric Vergne's Toro Rosso.
Massa, meanwhile, finished eighth, although the Scuderia
have now fallen 11 points behind Mercedes in the battle for second place in the
Constructors' Championship.
In contrast to the rest of the field, Force India managed
to get both of their drivers to the chequered flag by making just the one pit
stop. The reward for Paul di Resta was sixth place ahead of Hamilton, with
Sutil finishing tenth behind Massa and McLaren's Sergio Perez.
Outside the points, Jenson Button finished 12th after a
first-lap collision ruined his race for the second weekend running while Nico
Hulkenberg came home 14th behind team-mate Gutierrez after a drive-through
penalty - Sauber released his car into the path of Perez's after a pit stop -
ended what had looked like a solid run in the points.
Kimi Raikkonen's race summed up his weekend perfectly.
Having threatened a boycott at the start of the weekend in protest at Lotus's
inability to pay his wages, the Finn had started the race at the back of the
grid after his car failed a post-qualifying scrutineering check. But he only
managed two corners before colliding with a Caterham and had left the track
before the race was half run.
The impression was that Raikkonen couldn't wait to get
the hell out of there. Contrast that with the reaction of Vettel, who once
again performed doughnuts after - yet again - proving a class apart.
On this form, a run of nine straight wins to finish the
season appears more than likely.
Culled from Skysports
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