The Dutch pilot Max Verstappen (Red Bull) won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix this Sundayadding victory number 19 in the 22nd and last race of the season, in which the Mercedes finished second in the constructors’ championship.
Verstappen crossed the finish line in 1:27.02.624 hours, leaving the second classified, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) in second position, with 17.993 seconds, and with the British George Russell (Mercedes) in third place, with 20.328.
On the track, it was even the Mexican Sérgio Pérez who crossed the finish line in second position, but the The Red Bull driver was penalized with five seconds for causing a collision by overtaking the British driver Lando Norris (McLaren).
Leclerc even let the Mexican pass to try to lose more than five seconds to Russell and avoid the podium of Mercedes drivers, but the strategy did not work and Mercedes even secured the runner-up position among the constructors, which is worth a few million euros more in the end of the year.
Thanks to Russell’s third place and Hamilton’s ninth, the german team beat the italians, which completely missed the strategy of the Spanish Carlos Sainz. The Madrid native was forced to stay on hard tires for almost the entire racebeing called to the pits with two laps remaining for the mandatory compound change, sinking to 18th position.
With this result, he was also surpassed in the drivers’ championship by his compatriot Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), who thanks to his seventh place in today’s race finished the championship in fourth position, with the same 206 points as Charles Leclerc, the winner. in Number of podiums compared to the Monegasque.
Lando Norris was sixth, with 205 points, five more than Sainz, who ends the year seventh, after having been ahead of his teammate for much of the season.
Immune to all this drama was, once again, the Dutchman Max Verstappen, who achieved his 19th victory of the season, out of a possible 22, extending the record for victories in a single 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 in history, with 54 victories, one more than the German Sebastian Vettel. He is 37 behind Michael Schumacher (91) and 49 behind record holder Lewis Hamilton (103).
Verstappen’s dominance this year is evident in the number of laps led. There were 1,003 of the 1,325 in the championship, that is, 75.7% of the total laps completed. 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, second place is occupied by Sebastian Vettel, 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 second, with 285, and Lewis Hamilton third, with 234.
In the constructors’ competition, Red Bull won, with 860 points, more than double the second-placed Mercedes, which obtained 409. Ferrari was third, with 406.
Source: TSF
