After Korea and India, F1 returned to normality – albeit the palatial sort of ‘normality’ that passes for normal in F1 and that only the Yas Marina Circuit can provide. It’s a wonderful venue for racing but in its first two runnings has failed to produce a classic. Would DRS change that? Only time would tell.
McLaren dominated all three practice sessions but in qualifying Sebastian Vettel snatched pole from under Lewis Hamilton's nose, and matched Nigel Mansell’s record for the most pole positions on one season.
“Good morning, Mr Mansell!”
Sebastian Vettel – Red Bull Racing
“It is good that in that session, where it matters on Saturday, we were able to be just that little bit quicker than him (Lewis).”
Sebastian Vettel (after calming down)
“It was a good session for me. I think it has been quite a good couple of days to be honest, quite a big improvement for me... Well done to Sebastian, he did a great lap. As always, he is very, very quick but the race is tomorrow, that’s the most important day.”
Lewis Hamilton – McLaren
Vettel got a good start from pole, but it only lasted as far as the second corner where a puncture pitched him off and into the grass. Race over for Seb.
“Everything seemed fine and then turning into the second corner I could feel that something was odd on the rear right. I had to catch the car surprisingly and then the second time, I couldn’t do it anymore, as I’d lost too much air in the tyre. I had a puncture and spun off. When I got back to the pits, the resulting suspension damage meant we couldn’t carry on.”
Sebastian Vettel
“I saw immediately that something had happened to his tyre, and that’s why he was going sideways. I was just making sure that I didn’t collect him as he potentially came across the track. After that, I just saw that I had two very quick drivers behind me and I was just trying to keep the gap.”
Lewis Hamilton
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Lewis was out in front and Fernando Alonso muscled his way past Mark Webber and Jenson Button to snatch second and set about chasing Hamilton down.
“The start itself I don’t think was that good. I think we lost a little bit of ground with Jenson, who was right in front of us in third, and we were fifth. Then we braked and we risked, on the outside of turn one, to overtake Mark, so we gained one position there. We gained one position with Sebastian’s accident and then one position with the slipstream with Jenson.”
Fernando Alonso – Ferrari
'I had to fend off Webber and Massa which is quite interesting without KERS' – Jenson Button
Button was being chased hard for third by Mark Webber and Felipe Massa. Button had also lost KERS but he did enough to stay ahead.
“I had to fend off Webber and Massa which is quite interesting without KERS. In the [second] stint I was told what I could do to try and get KERS back, and at least we got it back, but it lasted for two laps at a time and I had to keep resetting it. The problem is not just when you accelerate, it’s when you brake. When you have KERS, you have a lot of engine braking and when you don’t have it, you don’t have any braking performance. Every time I arrived at a corner I didn’t know what I was going to get, either engine braking or not, so it was pretty tricky.”
Jenson Button – McLaren
Webber stayed out longer on the first stint, attempting to steal a place in the pitstops. It backfired when a sticking wheel nut gave him a long stop, instead of challenging Button he emerged behind Massa – but the three were soon back in a train again.
“We had a bad first pit stop, so we lost a lot of time with that. It put us on the back foot. I got the car back onto the leaders, but we were out of position by then.”
Mark Webber – Red Bull Racing
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Webber decided to try something different. He switched to a three-stop strategy and pitted early for another set of soft tyres.
“It was certainly worth a punt.”
Mark Webber
“[I was] very surprised. I don’t know if they thought that I had the KERS problem for the rest of the race because when I had the KERS problem, I was obviously a lot slower and he was pushing me around for 15 laps. As soon as I sorted the problem out, I would go half a second quicker. I don’t know. It was a strange decision but they also made a mistake on the first pit stop, I think, which lost them a lot of ground. I think that really hurt him and he wasn’t able to really challenge after that.”
Jenson Button
'It was certainly worth a punt' – Mark Webber
Mark immediately started setting fastest laps. He was past Massa by the time the Brazilian emerged from the pits, and also got past Button on the track – but with laps counting down he couldn’t find enough time and Button regained third when Mark had to pit again on the final lap. Massa, however, had a spin and Webber was able to hold on to fourth.
“It was pretty tricky, so to get to the end and be on the podium, I am pretty happy with that.”
Jenson Button
“With the mediums [tyres] I was really struggling to keep the car on track because of the lack of grip. That’s why I ended up spinning on lap 49, losing any remaining hope of staying ahead of Webber. In the first stint I could fight with Button and the Australian, but I always had the thought in my mind that, in the final stint, I’d be in trouble.”
Felipe Massa – Ferrari
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At the front, Alonso occasionally looked like threatening Hamilton, but never really got close enough to try. In the end the Englishman took the race with ease – and sounding a relieved man after a tough season.
“I feel fantastic. I think it was one of my best races. I said that to myself as I slowed down, just being able to hold off one of the best drivers in the world throughout the race is very, very tough to do. Just looking after the tyres, just managing the gap. Obviously the team did a fantastic job in the pit-stops, but I’m ecstatic. Really very happy to be back up here.”
Lewis Hamilton
“It was a fantastic race for me as well with a very good start and then a good first lap fighting with Jenson. We found ourselves second and then we fight all through the race more or less in a distance of three to five seconds with Lewis. I think they had a little bit more pace so even if we were able to overtake in the stop it was difficult to win the race so extremely happy with second and enjoy this weekend.”
Fernando Alonso
And so on we go to the final race of the season. Neither Abu Dhabi or India prompted much in the way of overtaking, but that’s never been a problem at the mighty Interlagos.
Want more?
- Read Seb Vettel's Abu Dhabi blog
- Official F1 website, www.formula1.com
- Read the race report from Abu Dhabi
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