Once a brake problem slowed McLaren.s Lewis Hamilton, Red Bull.s Sebastian Vettel
had no competition in Sunday evening.s inaugural day/night Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
A brilliant win cemented his second place in the drivers. world championship behind
Brawn GP.s Jenson Button, who enlivened the end of the race with a superb challenge
to the second-placed Red Bull of Mark Webber in the closing stages.
Hamilton led from pole and built a lead of 1.4s when he refuelled on the 17th lap.
Vettel was able to run until the 20th, and emerged comfortably in the lead. Soon
afterwards Hamilton.s challenge ended when McLaren had to withdraw his car after
the telemetry revealed a problem with the right rear brake pads which were suffering
from excessive wear.
Webber thus moved up to second, with Button at that stage a distant third ahead of
Brawn GP team mate Rubens Barrichello. The Brazilian had run ahead of the Englishman
on the opening lap but clipped Webber.s left-rear wheel with the right-hand endplate
of his front wing, causing understeer. Button overtook, and chased after Webber while,
at one stage, unsuccessfully fending off impressive rookie Kamui Kobayashi, until
the Toyota driver finally refuelled.
In the closing stages Button found the softer Bridgestone option tyre cured the under-
steer he.d had on the harder primes and homed in on Webber like a heat-seeking missile.
On the final lap he drew alongside at the end of the 1.2km back straight, but Webber
handled the situation beautifully, hogging the inside line and forcing Button to go to
the outside where he didn.t want to go. They ran side by side for a while, but the
Australian was able to keep his second place by 0.6s.
Behind them, the race was relatively uneventful. Nick Heidfeld signed off BMW Sauber.s
tenure as a joint team with a solid fifth place ahead of Kobayashi, who proved to be
the find of the second half of the season. Toyota.s Jarno Trulli was seventh, two-
stopping where Kobayashi stopped once, and Toro Rosso.s Sebastien Buemi survived
a challenge and a brush with BMW Sauber.s Robert Kubica, which left the Pole spinning,
to take the final point.
Nico Rosberg was ninth for Williams with a recovered Kubica 10th. McLaren.s Heikki
Kovalainen fought up from his 18th place start to take 11th, ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.s
uncompetitive Ferrari, Kazuki Nakajima.s Williams, Fernando Alonso who took his Renault
until the 34th lap before his sole refuelling stop, and similarly single-stopping
Vitantonio Liuzzi whose Force India was the last unlapped runner.
Ferrari.s Giancarlo Fisichella jumped Romain Grosjean.s Renault in the closing laps
for 16th, and the Franco Swiss driver was so unsettled that Force India.s Adrian Sutil
also sneaked by.
Besides Hamilton, the only other retirement was Jaime Alguersuari. The Spaniard
mistakenly tried to refuel in Vettel.s Red Bull pit instead of his own Toro Rosso camp
and was frantically waved back round. He stopped soon after out on the track.
.n the constructors. world championship, McLaren retained third place ahead of Ferrari,
while Williams lost sixth at the last gasp by 1.5 points to BMW Sauber.
Pos No Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Pts
1 15 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 55 1:34:03.414 2 10
2 14 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 55 +17.8 secs 3 8
3 22 Jenson Button Brawn-Mercedes 55 +18.4 secs 5 6
4 23 Rubens Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes 55 +22.7 secs 4 5
5 6 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 55 +26.2 secs 8 4
6 10 Kamui Kobayashi Toyota 55 +28.3 secs 12 3
7 9 Jarno Trulli Toyota 55 +34.3 secs 6 2
8 12 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 55 +41.2 secs 10 1
9 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 55 +45.9 secs 9
10 5 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 55 +48.1 secs 7
11 2 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 55 +52.7 secs 18
12 4 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 55 +54.3 secs 11
13 17 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 55 +59.8 secs 13
14 7 Fernando Alonso Renault 55 +69.6 secs 15
15 21 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 55 +94.4 secs 16
16 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Ferrari 54 +1 Lap 20
17 20 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 54 +1 Lap 17
18 8 Romain Grosjean Renault 54 +1 Lap 19
Ret 1 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 19 Brakes 1
Ret 11 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 17 Gearbox 14
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