Dutch driver Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this Sunday, taking his 19th victory in the 22nd and final race of the season, in which Mercedes finished second in the constructors’ championship.
Verstappen passed the target in 1:27.02.624 hours, leaving Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) in second place, at 17.993 seconds, and Briton George Russell (Mercedes) in third, at 20,328.
On the track it was the Mexican Sérgio Pérez who crossed the finish line in second, but the Red Bull driver was given a five-second time penalty for causing a collision when he overtook the Briton Lando Norris (McLaren).
Leclerc even let the Mexican pass in an attempt to make Russell lose more than five seconds and avoid the Mercedes driver’s podium, but the strategy didn’t work and Mercedes even finished second among the constructors, which added another few million to the constructors. euro is worth more. the end of the year.
Thanks to Russell’s third place and Hamilton’s ninth, the German team defeated the Italians, who completely misjudged the strategy of Spaniard Carlos Sainz. The Madrid native had to stay on hard tires for almost the entire race and was called to the pits for the mandatory compound change with two laps to go, dropping him to 18th place.
With this result, he was also overtaken in the Drivers’ World Championship by his compatriot Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who, thanks to seventh place in today’s race, finished the championship in fourth place, with the same 206 points as Charles Leclerc, and won in number of podiums compared to the Monegasque.
Lando Norris finished sixth with 205 points, five more than Sainz, who ended the year seventh after spending much of the season ahead of his teammate.
Immune to all this drama was once again Dutchman Max Verstappen, who took his 19th win of the season, out of a possible 22, extending the record for wins in the same season.
Thanks to today’s victory, Verstappen, who was already a three-time champion before this race, isolated himself in third place among the most victorious ever, with 54 victories, one more than the German Sebastian Vettel. He is 37 behind the second, which is Michael Schumacher (91) and 49 behind record holder Lewis Hamilton (103).
Verstappen’s dominance this year is evident from the number of laps driven. There were 1,003 of the 1,325 in the championship, i.e. 75.7% of the total number of rounds. In percentage terms, only Jim Clark comes close, with 71.47% of the 708 laps of the 1963 championship (he led 506). In absolute terms, Sebastian Vettel is in second place, with 739 out of 1,133 in 2011.
The championship ends with Verstappen champion, with 575 points (today he added an extra point for the fastest lap), with Sérgio Pérez in second place, with 285, and Lewis Hamilton in third place, with 234.
In the constructors’ competition, Red Bull won with 860 points, more than double the second-placed Mercedes, which scored 409. Ferrari came third with 406.
Source: DN
