Lewis Hamilton savored a morale-boosting Abu Dhabi Grand Prix victory on Sunday after Red Bull’s double Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel suffered his first race retirement in more than a year.
The McLaren driver, celebrating the third win of a troubled season, took the checkered flag 8.4 seconds ahead of Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. Jenson Button was a distant third for McLaren.
“Mega job, mega job guys — as usual,” whooped 2008 champion Hamilton over the team radio, dedicating the victory to his watching mother Carmen as a birthday present.
Photo: EPA
Vettel, who has already clinched this year’s title, was pitched off by a sudden puncture only seconds after making a lightning start from his record-equaling 14th pole position of the season.
The German managed to nurse his Red Bull back to the garage, but he was forced to retire once mechanics had surveyed the damage.
The retirement ended Vettel’s hopes of matching Michael Schumacher’s record of 13 wins in a single season. He currently has 11 wins this year with only the Brazilian Grand Prix remaining.
It also ended a run of seven podiums and 19 successive points finishes stretching back to last season.
While Vettel was left as a pit wall spectator on an evening without a Red Bull driver on the podium for the first time this year, Hamilton drove a controlled and self-assured race that lap by lap lifted his spirits as day turned to night.
The Briton has been embroiled in plenty of controversy this season and six collisions with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa, but Sunday’s race was flawless.
“When I was doing the lap on the way in [after the finish], I was thinking that this was definitely one of my best, just in terms of my own performance, not making mistakes,” Hamilton said. “I don’t feel I’ve made a single mistake in the race and with the things that have gone on, with the pressure that I’ve been under and with the doubt that has surrounded me, I felt just massively proud to have put that kind of performance together and to have come out on top.”
While Alonso led for a couple of laps before his final stop, the Spaniard came out of the pits 4.4 seconds behind the McLaren.
Alonso could still be happy with Ferrari’s first podium finish at a lavish circuit that has a Ferrari theme park next door, as well as a trophy to complete his personal collection of one from every track on the current calendar.
If the day-night race was hardly a thriller once Vettel had departed, there was at least more overtaking than in the past and a change of winner. There was no doubting Hamilton’s happiness either.
He gave Alonso, his former teammate and foe, who had sung his praises earlier in the weekend, a friendly hug on the podium and waved to the crowd as Button doused him with fizzy rosewater.
Button’s third place, secured on the penultimate lap when Red Bull’s Mark Webber had to pit for a mandatory switch to hard tires, ended a difficult afternoon for the 2009 champion, whose KERS system failed early on.
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