Simply Abu Dhabi XXVIII

T he results book says that Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won the 2017 Formula One World Championship at round 18 in Mexico, two races clear of the season finale in Abu Dhabi. What it doesn’t show is the titanic near season-long battle that was one of the best we’ve witnessed in recent F1 history. The Yas Marina Circuit was robbed of holding a title showdown as it has done several times before, but the ferocity of the duel betweenMercedes and Ferrari all year has been one that you will rarely witness in professional sport. At the halfway stage of the championship, when the teams took their compulsory summer break in August, Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel le the series by 14 points over Hamilton. At his peak Vettel held a 25-point buffer over Hamilton after just six races when he won the Monaco GP, by which point people were already starting to wager a Ferrari title for 2017. 2017FormulaOne Season review By Damien Reid