Hamilton secures second title with Abu Dhabi victory

F1 Grand Prix, GP Abu Dhabi, Yas Marina Circuit

Lewis Hamilton has secured his second Formula One World Championship title following victory at today's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Hamilton never came under any threat after reliability failed Rosberg. Williams' Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas completed the podium.

A bit of pre-race information: Air temperature is 26C and track temperature is 33C.

As the lights went out, Lewis Hamilton made a blinding start and easily launched into the first corner ahead of Nico Rosberg who start from pole position. At the end of the first lap, Hamilton already pulled an advantage of 1.3s on his closest competitor.

In third position was Massa, followed by Button, Raikkonen and Alonso. Kvyat came through in 7th while Bottas dropped down from 3rd to 8th. Hulkenberg came through in 9th after the first lap, followed by Perez, Gutierrez, Vergne, Magnussen, Maldonado, Kobayashi, Sutil, Ricciardo, Vettel, Stevens and Grosjean.

On lap 5, Alonso gets past his teammate through the outside of turn 8, with Kvyat soon following through. Alonso immediately dove into the pitlane after that to change from super soft to soft. Raikkonen on the other hand went on for another lap, losing another position to Bottas on turn 8.

Button and Kvyat pitted in the same lap.

By lap 9, partly thanks to some stops ahead, Ricciardo is 8th and Vettel 10th. In between them is Kevin Magnussen. He started from 9th on options.

On lap 11, Hamilton pits in 2.7 seconds. Bottas similarly stopped on the same lap after having moved up to 4th, 13 seconds behind his team mate. Nico Rosberg pitted a single lap later, rejoining 3.1 seconds behind Hamilton.

Two laps later Ricciardo and Vergne get into a close battle on track, with Vergne fending off attacks from the Red Bull driver. It turned out to be a clean and proper fight with Vergne proving why he is in Formula One. Having got Ricciardo ahead of him after 3 corners of side-by-side running, Vergne took his 6th place back.

At the end of that lap, Felipe Massa was the last of the front runners to pit for prime tyres. He pitted from the lead and rejoined the race in third place, 8s down on Rosberg and ahead of both Force India cars.

Behind the Force India's, a pack has formed, led by Kevin Magnussen. He is closely followed by Vettel, Button and Alonso. Raikkonen is the next man, following 7 seconds down the road. Daniil Kvyat meanwhile retired on lap 17 with apparent technical problems.

On lap 22, Magnussen pitted to change to supersofts while Vettel stopped and got fitted with a new set of softs. Magnussen rejoined in 13th with Vettel in 15th. The latter had a little delay in getting his car going again after the stop, resulting in Gutierrez sneaking ahead.

Two laps later, Bottas passed Ricciardo to take 4th. The Red Bull driver was managing his tyres to be able to go on for a few more laps.

On lap 25, Rosberg was seen to have a front tyre lockup into turn 17, following which he reported a loss of engine power. His engineer reported moments later that ERS failed on his car, effectively removing 160hp from his car while reducing rear braking power as the system is not recovering energy under braking. Two laps later, Rosberg is easily passed by Massa as his own Mercedes is now lapping 3 seconds a lap slower.

On lap 29 Maldonado endures an apparent turbo failure. Staying on the throttle while the engine failed meant a big fire out of the exhaust, sending that Renault engine off in style before parking the car away from the track, avoiding the need for a safety car.

At the very front, Hamilton turned down his engine as well, lapping a second a lap slower than Felipe Massa.

Hamilton pitted on lap 32, rejoining in third, closely behind his team mate. Hamilton however easily got past the stricken Mercedes of Rosberg while Bottas moved up into third himself after passing Rosberg one lap later.

At Ferrari, Alonso suddenly lost ground to Button. Having fought his way ahead of the McLaren driver, Alonso lost the place again 3 laps later, and subsequently dropped to 3 seconds off of Button, ending up with Raikkonen on his back.

Rosberg pitted on lap 35 without trouble, even though he had to perform a 'manual getaway'. Bottas pitted one lap later for a new set of softs and rejoined in 4th, just behind Ricciardo but ahead of Perez, Vettel and Rosberg. The latter was told it didn't look too good to secure a position good enough to take the championship if Hamilton would drop out, upon his own request. What he was not told is that at that time, Rosberg was lapping slowest of all, two seconds slower than Vettel ahead.

On lap 41, Rosberg went wide through turn 1, triggering a report about a long brake pedal. It looks likely that his rear brakes are wearing out now that he does not have the electrical braking power of ERS anymore.

At the front, Hamilton posts the fastest lap of the race, even after having asked his engineer not to 'turn up the car'. Hamilton is certainly cautious to prevent any mechanical issues.

On lap 44, Massa finally pits from the lead, taking on a set of used super softs to rejoin in second place, 10.8 seconds down on Lewis Hamilton. 2 laps later Massa posts two fastest laps, reducing his deficit to Hamilton to 8 seconds.

On lap 47, Vettel pitted and rejoined behind Alonso. The Spaniard has been effectively moving backwards since the halfway point. Half a lap later Vettel gets ahead of the Ferrari, dropping Alonso to 10th with the second Ferrari of Raikkonen 3seconds down the road.

In the meantime, Massa continued to close the gap to Hamilton but then stalled at around 5 seconds.

Rosberg meanwhile dropped even more pace, requiring more than 2 minutes to complete a lap. By lap 52, that puts Rosberg down in 13th position. Moment later Rosberg is asked to box his car, but the latter preferred to continue to the end. With two laps left, Hamilton lapped Rosberg as well, not a surprise knowing a pace difference of 20 seconds a lap.

...

In the end, Hamilton didn't really come under any threat and celebrated his victory and his second world title with a few donuts along the back straight.

Jenson Button was also seen making some donuts, likely a goodbye to his fans as it is still not sure the Brit will be in F1 next year.