ROUND 17 (FINALE) - ABU DHABI GPSpectacular Circuit ... the Yas Marina Circuit was a perfect circuit for the last race ending the 2009 season . Beautifully designed with the race set between Dusk and Nightfull. Its also the first F1 night race on a race track.
Look out for Kobayashi next year ... if Toyota is to make him race .
----------------------------------------------------------------
Vettel and Red Bull triumphant at Yas Marina (1 Nov) Once a brake problem slowed McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel had no competition in Sunday evening’s inaugural day/night Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. A brilliant win cemented his second place in the drivers’ world championship behind Brawn GP’s Jenson Button, who enlivened the end of the race with a superb challenge to the second-placed Red Bull of Mark Webber in the closing stages.
Hamilton led from pole and built a lead of 1.4s when he refuelled on the 17th lap. Vettel was able to run until the 20th, and emerged comfortably in the lead. Soon afterwards Hamilton’s challenge ended when McLaren had to withdraw his car after the telemetry revealed a problem with the right rear brake pads which were suffering from excessive wear.
Webber thus moved up to second, with Button at that stage a distant third ahead of Brawn GP team mate Rubens Barrichello. The Brazilian had run ahead of the Englishman on the opening lap but clipped Webber’s left-rear wheel with the right-hand endplate of his front wing, causing understeer. Button overtook, and chased after Webber while, at one stage, unsuccessfully fending off impressive rookie Kamui Kobayashi, until the Toyota driver finally refuelled.
€n the closing stages Button found the softer Bridgestone option tyre cured the understeer he’d had on the harder primes and homed in on Webber like a heat-seeking missile. On the final lap he drew alongside at the end of the 1.2km back straight, but Webber handled the situation beautifully, hogging the inside line and forcing Button to go to the outside where he didn’t want to go. They ran side by side for a while, but the Australian was able to keep his second place by 0.6s.
Behind them, the race was relatively uneventful. Nick Heidfeld signed off BMW Sauber’s tenure as a joint team with a solid fifth place ahead of Kobayashi, who proved to be the find of the second half of the season. Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was seventh, two-stopping where Kobayashi stopped once, and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi survived a challenge and a brush with BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, which left the Pole spinning, to take the final point.
Nico Rosberg was ninth for Williams with a recovered Kubica 10th. McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen fought up from his 18th place start to take 11th, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen’s uncompetitive Ferrari, Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams, Fernando Alonso who took his Renault until the 34th lap before his sole refuelling stop, and similarly single-stopping Vitantonio Liuzzi whose Force €ndia was the last unlapped runner.
Ferrari’s Giancarlo Fisichella jumped Romain Grosjean’s Renault in the closing laps for 16th, and the Franco Swiss driver was so unsettled that Force €ndia’s Adrian Sutil also sneaked by.
Besides Hamilton, the only other retirement was Jaime Alguersuari. The Spaniard mistakenly tried to refuel in Vettel’s Red Bull pit instead of his own Toro Rosso camp and was frantically waved back round. He stopped soon after out on the track.
€n the constructors’ world championship, McLaren retained third place ahead of Ferrari, while Williams lost sixth at the last gasp by 1.5 points to BMW Sauber.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
RESULTS - RD 172009 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX (30 Oct - 01 Nov 2009)Pos Driver Team Pts
=============================================1 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 10
2 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 8
3 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 6
4 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 5
5 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 4
6 Kamui Kobayashi Toyota 3
7 Jarno Trulli Toyota 2
8 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1
9 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota
10 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber
11 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes
12 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari
13 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota
14 Fernando Alonso Renault
15 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes
16 Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari
17 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes
18 Romain Grosjean Renault
Ret Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes Brakes
Ret Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari Gearbox
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DRIVER STANDINGSPos Driver Nationality Team Points
===============================================1 Jenson Button British Brawn-Mercedes 95
2 Sebastian Vettel German RBR-Renault 84
3 Rubens Barrichello Brazilian Brawn-Mercedes 77
4 Mark Webber Australian RBR-Renault 69.5
5 Lewis Hamilton British McLaren-Mercedes 49
6 Kimi Räikkönen Finnish Ferrari 48
7 Nico Rosberg German Williams-Toyota 34.5
8 Jarno Trulli Italian Toyota 32.5
9 Fernando Alonso Spanish Renault 26
10 Timo Glock German Toyota 24
11 Felipe Massa Brazilian Ferrari 22
12 Heikki Kovalainen Finnish McLaren-Mercedes 22
13 Nick Heidfeld German BMW Sauber 19
14 Robert Kubica Polish BMW Sauber 17
15 Giancarlo Fisichella Italian Ferrari 8
16 Sebastien Buemi Swiss STR-Ferrari 6
17 Adrian Sutil German Force India-Mercedes 5
18 Kamui Kobayashi Japanese Toyota 3
19 Sebastien Bourdais French STR-Ferrari 2
20 Kazuki Nakajima Japanese Williams-Toyota 0
21 Nelsinho Piquet Brazilian Renault 0
22 Vitantonio Liuzzi Italian Force India-Mercedes 0
23 Romain Grosjean French Renault 0
24 Jaime Alguersuari Spanish STR-Ferrari 0
25 Luca Badoer Italian Ferrari 0
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONSTRUCTOR STANDINGSPos Team Points
=========================1 Brawn-Mercedes 172
2 RBR-Renault 153.5
3 McLaren-Mercedes 71
4 Ferrari 70
5 Toyota 59.5
6 BMW Sauber 36
7 Williams-Toyota 34.5
8 Renault 26
9 Force India-Mercedes 13
10 STR-Ferrari 8
=====================================
