All the attention was on Lewis Hamilton and his last race with Mercedes in Abu Dhabi. It was the last race of their career for Zhou, Bottas and Magnussen (and possibly Colapinto), who received less attention. A fair deal of attention was on Brad Pitt's film, it was their last race too.
There seemed to be some extra penalties applied over night but because of the nostalgia-fest if was very hard to see what they were. We were also treated to Will.I.Am and Jackie Stewart DJing. Hulkenberg was given a penalty for something during Qualifying and his team mate Magnussen did a practice start before the race somewhere he shouldn't have and would be investigated and penalised after the race. Surely the stewards could have found time before the race started.
Ferrari were on the back foot vis-a-vis the championship with LeClerc starting at the back of the grid. Initially it looked like a clean start when the lights went out but Piasti and Verstappen touched unnecessarily and both spun, each to one side of the track. This put Norris out front, with Sainz behind, then Gasly. LeClerc was up to 12th then Perez spun and a couple more cars came together. There was a high chance of a Safety Car at this track. It was the McLaren of Piasti now at the back. Perez came together with Bottas and was left stranded on the track, a Virtual Safety Car was set.
Then Piastri drove into the back of Colapinto, giving him a puncture. The McLaren came in but did not get a new wing just tyres, possibly to see him through to the end of the race.
Verstappen was given a 10 second penalty for his early incident, which was fairly clear from the overhead shot. Piastri's radio as he spun was replayed: "Move of a world champion, that one." Bottas was also given 10 seconds for taking Perez out. Then...10 seconds for Piastri for hitting Colapinto.
Magnussen had a very slow stop to continue his unfortunate last race. Zhou also got a last race penalty, for a false start. Clearly, everyone was tired and not operating at full potential. Racing Bulls did not put Lawson's tyres on properly at his first pit stop. Williams ended an awful season retiring Colapinto.
Verstappen made an annoyed comment to his team after taking his 10 second penalty during his stop. I felt it was unclear whether he was criticising the time it took his team or the stewards but it wasn't necessary. It really confirmed all the comments Russell reported.
Bottas locked up and went into Magnussen, ruining both their final races and leaving a lot of debris. Bottas was out but Magnussen limped on although he went on to set the fastest lap but wouldn't get the point for it because he didn't finish in the top 10. It said, "What next?" on the top of Valteri's helmet.
Rookie Doohan had a good race; he didn't crash into anyone or worse.
With 11 laps to go, Piastri had a big off to avoid crashing, he was looking ragged too.
It looked like it was going to end Norris, Sainz, LeClerc. Could Ferrari do anything to take the championship by getting Norris to drop back even one place? The panicking started: LeClerc thought his tyres were graining too much and then Sainz thought he had run over debris and got a puncture.
With 3 laps to go, Albon had fallen out of the points unfortunately. Let's hope next year sees better results for the team with the arrival of Sainz and Vowles being deeper embedded. On the last lap, Lawson stopped somewhere on track with an engine fire. His car was rolling downhill. Hamilton was hoping to overtake his team mate on this lap but the Yellow Flags were hindering him.
The fireworks heralded Norris the race winner, he drove cleanly and triumphantly. The Ferraris of Sainz and LeClerc were behind him; they could not have done more to try and win it (well, not needed to change LeClerc's battery). The mechanics of both teams congratulated each other in the pit lane. Hamilton snatched 4th place from Russell in the last couple of corners. Rounding out the top ten was Verstappen, Gasly, Hulkenberg for his last race for Haas, Alonso (who it feels should be going somewhere or retiring but ploughs on) and Piastri.
Hamilton did doughnuts on the pit straight. It was a long wait for the interviews and the podium, in fact it seemed very poorly planned. We head into 2025 with some intrigue and I wonder what Drive to Survive will make of it all?
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