- 11th win of the season seals second title
- Rosberg has ERS failure and limps home in 14th
- Massa threatens win but finishes second ahead of Bottas
Lewis Hamilton won his second world championship with victory in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as reliability problems hit team-mate Nico Rosberg.
Rosberg – who started from pole – dropped behind Hamilton at the start and then suffered an ERS failure halfway through the race which saw him drop through the field. Hamilton was then able to manage his pace at the front to take his 11th victory of the season and secure the title regardless of where Rosberg finished.
In the end Rosberg was lapped by Hamilton two laps from the end and crawled home in 14th place.
Felipe Massa was second after threatening to take his first win for Williams, capitalising on the Mercedes problems to lead for a number of laps. With Hamilton nursing his car, Massa was able to put on supersoft tyres for his final stint and attempt to close an 11s gap to Hamilton, eventually finishing 2.5s adrift.
Valtteri Bottas recovered from a poor start to finish third and give Williams its first double-podium finish of the season, while Daniel Ricciardo delivered an impressive performance to finish fourth having started the race from the pit lane.
Jenson Button finished fifth in what could be his final grand prix, leading home the two Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez. Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen completed the top ten.
While Rosberg started from pole position – and needed to win with Hamilton third or lower to take the title – it was Hamilton who made the dream start to comfortably lead in to Turn 1. From there, he eased out a two-second gap over Rosberg through the first stint, which was retained during the pit stops.
Massa remained close to the two Mercedes cars and was in position to take full advantage of any misfortune. And disaster struck for Rosberg on lap 23 when he ran wide at Turn 17 and reported a loss of engine power, with Mercedes telling him that he had an ERS failure.
Rosberg’s challenge quickly faded as Massa soon overtook him and he tumbled down the field after a slow second pit stop. Hamilton backed off as well in order to ensure he didn’t suffer the same issue as his team-mate and that allowed Massa to take the lead as he ran longer in the middle stint.
Further back, the two Red Bulls were climbing through the field having started from the pit lane and Ricciardo had climbed up to P3 – partly due to strategy as well as some close racing with the likes of Jean-Eric Vergne – by the second stops, dropping behind the recovering Bottas. Vettel was struggling more in traffic but eased past Alonso late on in the final race before taking his seat at Ferrari.
With Massa running long in the middle stint he opted for supersoft tyres for the final 12 laps in an attempt to chase down Hamilton. While taking chunks out of the Mercedes, Hamilton just had enough pace in hand and Massa ran out of laps to challenge for victory.
Hamilton crossed the line to seal a second world championship and received congratulations from Prince Harry over team radio, while Mercedes’ Paddy Lowe told Rosberg he “drove like a champion” despite his car issues.
After performing donuts and a lap holding the British flag aloft from his cockpit, Hamilton returned to parc ferme to celebrate with his team and Rosberg congratulated his team-mate before an emotional podium.
Story by: Crash.net