Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: More doughnuts in Abu Dhabi...

Sebastian Vettel was at it again, both doing doughnuts and winning. He was utterly dominant in this his seventh consecutive victory, matching the record set by Micheal Schumacher. Even teammate, often at loggerheads with the young German, Mark Webber, was full of shining praise, admitting that Sebastian is 'on another planet'. It is becoming more and more difficult for the critics and general haters of Vettel to dispute his awesome ability. Mark Webber also pointed out that his closest rival was able to out pace everyone whilst, at the same time, preserving his tyres.

Mark Webber sympathisers, which is pretty much everyone that watches Formula One, will have
been disappointed to see him fall at the first hurdle again. After achieving a great pole position, he had one of his characteristic sluggish starts, resulting in him dropping back to third. He dug his heels in and managed to salvage second, which was clearly a result that he was happy with, since he copied Seb in doing doughnuts. It might be fair to claim that Webber has all but wound down in this his final season in Formula One and so is able to provide us with an honest opinion of Vettel's performance, unclouded by rivalry or competitiveness.

Two teams, that have been waning in recent grands prix, were looking strong again today. Ferrari, and specifically Massa, looked very strong, and on a couple of occasions were involved in some very exciting mid field battles. The Force India team, that I have supported from the start of the season, were also looking competitive and achieved good results. Alonso had an especially hairy moment, when he came out of the pits right next to Jean Eric-Vergne. Fernando had to drive off the track, almost damaging his car and causing an accident. The incident was investigated and no action was taken. I think that it is clear that Alonso was reckless and dangerous, and should have received some sort of reprimand. When leaving the pit lane, drivers are meant to yield to opponents on the track, if there is any risk of collision, and it is clear that this incident was far from safe.

Kimi Raikonnen was quite unlucky. After being put to the back of the grid he made contact with one of the usual back-of-the-field runners and damaged his car terminally. In much the same way as top football teams find it difficult to play against a minnow, top drivers find it hard to compete and avoid trouble around the back of the grid. Sometimes driving a Formula One car at that kind of level is very different to driving one right at the front. I'm so glad that what I suggested in my last blog is true; despite the World Championship being done and dusted, the racing in the middle of the pack is still superb.

The result:

	Driver	Car	Team	Grid	Fastest Lap	Race Time	Points
1	Sebastian Vettel	1	Red Bull	2	1:43.893	1:38:06.106	25
2	Mark Webber	2	Red Bull	1	1:44.364	+00:30.829	18
3	Nico Rosberg	9	Mercedes	3	1:44.458	+00:33.650	15
4	Romain Grosjean	8	Lotus	6	1:44.301	+00:34.802	12
5	Fernando Alonso	3	Ferrari	10	1:43.434	+01:07.181	10
6	Paul Di Resta	14	Force India	11	1:45.786	+01:18.174	8
7	Lewis Hamilton	10	Mercedes	4	1:45.463	+01:19.267	6
8	Felipe Massa	4	Ferrari	7	1:45.447	+01:22.886	4
9	Sergio Perez	6	McLaren	8	1:45.435	+01:31.198	2
10	Adrian Sutil	15	Force India	17	1:45.609	+01:33.257	1
11	Pastor Maldonado	16	Williams	14	1:45.530	+01:35.989	0
12	Jenson Button	5	McLaren	12	1:46.336	+01:43.767	0
13	Esteban Gutierrez	12	Sauber	16	1:45.974	+01:44.295	0
14	Nico Hulkenberg	11	Sauber	5	1:45.570	lapped	0
15	Valtteri Bottas	17	Williams	15	1:44.351	lapped	0
16	Daniel Ricciardo	19	Toro Rosso	9	1:46.042	lapped	0
17	Jean-Eric Vergne	18	Toro Rosso	13	1:44.517	lapped	0
18	Giedo van der Garde	21	Caterham	18	1:46.592	lapped	0
19	Charles Pic	20	Caterham	19	1:46.432	lapped	0
20	Jules Bianchi	22	Marussia	21	1:47.619	lapped	0
21	Max Chilton	23	Marussia	20	1:47.707	lapped	0
22	Kimi Raikkonen	7	Lotus	22	No time	retired, 0 laps	0

Kimi has a #@!*ing good race!

Well, what a contrast to India. In fact, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix literally blew the Indian Grand Prix out of the desert. The race at the Yas Marina circuit was arguably the most exciting race of the season and so full of incident its difficult to know where to start. It's probably best to kick off with the fact that, in the week running up to the Grand Prix weekend itself, Yas Marina played host to the eighth F1 in Schools World Final, which saw 33 teams, from schools around the world competing for the increasingly sought after title of F1 in Schools World Champion. It was a fantastic support act for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the race itself continued to deliver excitement.

Kimi Raikonnen profitted from Lewis Hamilton's poor luck, but it can't be denied that Kimi was utterly brilliant and showed us all why he is a former World Champion. He didn't falter, even as Alonso started to breathe down his neck, and went on to make it the first time Lotus have had a driver on the top step of the podium in over one hundred and eighty races. As a result of Raikonnen's win, he finds himself still in the hunt for, at least, second place in the Championship. During and after the race, in true Raikonnen style, he found a few choice words and phrases to emphasise his feelings. Over the team radio, Kimi's race engineer calmly informed Kimi that Alonso was "five seconds behind", adding "I will keep you updated on his distance and his pace", to which Kimi replied "Leave me alone. I know what I'm doing!"

Mark Webber had a torrid day, which all kicked off with yet another poor start. All of Red Bull Racing's hopes were sensibly pinned on Webber, as the beginning of the race approached, and it was clear that Mark was the only Red Bull driver who could plausibly achieve a decent result in Abu Dhabi. The poor start saw Webber tumbling down the order and provided an indication of things to come. As the race progressed Mark's attitude became uncharacteristically wild. He first attempted an overtake around the outside of Pastor Maldonado, unfairly slamming the door on the Venezuelan and leaving Maldonado with nowhere to go but into the side of the Red Bull. Miraculously, both cars were completely unharmed and, after Webber had righted himself, they continued the race.

Only a few laps later, after it had been declared that, unbelievably, Webber would incur no penalty for the move on Maldonado, he had another coming together, this time with Massa. The contact between the two of them in the first part of the chicane was quite inocuous, but after crossing the corner Mark Webber rashly threw his car back on to the circuit, directly in to the path of Filipe, causing him to spin in an effort to avoid contact. Even more unbelievably, Mark got away with this incident as well.

Webber eventually came to grief when he joined the scuffle between Paul Di Resta, Sergio Perez and (surprise, surprise) Romane Grosjean. The shuffling of positions was complicated but it ended in Grosjean sat in a broken Lotus, Webber rolling off the circuit in a three-wheeled Red Bull and Perez facing a stop-and-go penalty for causing the incident. The race officials must have drawn straws to decide who had to pick the bones out of that mess and attribute blame.

There was a big heart-in-the-mouth moment, when Narain Karthikeyan had an engine failure, causing him to experience a sudden loss of power, which drammatically resulted in Rosberg launching his Mercedes over the top of the HRT and in to a distant barrier. Both drivers were out of their cars quickly and Nico seemed to fully understand that there was nothing Karthikeyan could have done about the incident.

The real story of the race was Sebastien Vettel's phenomenal recovery, not only from having to start in the pitlane, but having to pitstop under a safety car to replace his front wing, which put him plumb last again, 14 laps in to the race. It was from there, and even with a second pitstop, that Vettel managed to climb all the way up, past his teammate and in to fourth place, just before the second safety car. The icing on the cake came when he made a fabulous passing move on Jenson Button, to steal the third and final podium place. I firmly believe that this race could well go down in history as Sebastien Vettel's greatest ever.

Let's all take a breather and prepare ourselves for Austin, Texas, in two weeks time.