Sebastian Vettel has become the youngest driver ever to win the Formula 1 world championship. At 23 years and 134 days old he has broken the record set by Lewis Hamilton in 2008, who won the title aged 23 years, 301 days.
This record has now been broken three times in the last six years – Fernando Alonso the first to break it in 2005.
The double World Champion spent a lot of time behind Renault’s Vitaly Petrov and failed to overtake the Russian rookie and that pretty much took his championship chances away. Red Bull’s Mark Webber who was also a strong contender for the championship suffered from the same fate and spent the entire duration of the 55-lap race behind Alonso.
Vettel’s first place finish was accompanied by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton who was closing the gap between himself and Vettel during the final few laps. Third place went to Hamilton’s teammate Jenson Button, champion of 2009. This meant that the podium of the 2010 Abu Dhabi GP at the Yas Marina circuit was made up by the 2008 champion (Hamilton), 2009 champion and of course of the freshly-crowned 2010 champion.
The best of the new comers is officially Lotus Racing as Heikki Kovalainen finished the race in 17th place ahead Virgin’s Lucas di Grassi. The Hispania duo Bruno Senna and Christian Klien finished in 19th and 20th. Jarno Trulli of Lotus who suffered from various issues including a broken rear wing managed 21st. The were only three retirements of the day and they were Timo Glock of Virgin, Michael Schumacher of Mercedes and finally Vitantonio Liuzzi of Force India.
All drivers had clean starts when the lights went green but Alonso slipped from third to fourth by the first corner. Vettel managed to maintain his lead and stayed up in front, ahead of both the McLaren drivers. Just moments later, within the first lap, Schumacher spun while exiting a corner and Liuzzi crashed straight into him. That caused the one and only Safety Car period of the race. Too bad for Schumi. This is his first race in Abu Dhabi.
After the restart the top positions were maintain with Vettel leading the McLaren drivers, Alonso, Webber and Massa. Webber was the first of the top runners to pit after suffering tire issues. His pit stop then prompted Massa and subsequently Alonso’s pit stops.
Many say that if Alonso didn’t pit as early as he did, he could have collected his third title. Unfortunately for the Spaniard, he got stuck behind Petrov until the very end of the race as the Russian already performed his pit stop during the Safety Car period earlier. Webber was also in the same train, behind Alonso.
Alonso tried his best to overtake Petrov but the Russian did an excellent job in keeping the title contender at bay. Good job Petrov. What a wonderful performance you've shown tonight.
Today was the final race of the season and we will meet again next for the 2011 Bahrain GP on March 13th. Meanwhile expect more news from the high-adrenaline world of Formula 1 as teams perform winter testing with new Pirelli rubber, launch their new contenders and announce their drivers. We will also find out if Lotus Racing will be able to keep the “Team Lotus” designation
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