Simply Abu Dhabi XXVIII

4 8 S I M P LY A B U DH A B I With Hamilton now out of the points, Vettel needed to finish second in order to keep his championship hopes alive. He could only manage fourth place at the finish, though, which wasn’t enough to stop Hamilton in ninth place fromwinning the World Championship. Verstappen won his third F1 race ahead of Bottas and Raikkonen. Drivers: Hamilton: 333 Vettel: 277 Constructors: Mercedes: 595 Ferrari: 455 Rd 19 Brazil: With both drivers’ and constructors’ championships locked up, the pressure was off at the penultimate round; and for Hamilton, at least, so too was the concentration as he made his first mistake of 2017 and crashed on his first lap of qualifying. This forced him to start from pit lane after he decided to take the chance to change his gearbox and power unit. Teammate Bottas started from pole in front of the two Ferraris of Vettel and Raikkonen. With a new engine and free tyres, Hamilton carved his way through the back markers while Vettel got the jump over Bottas for the lead. As the leaders conserved their engines, Hamilton powered through and passed Verstappen in fourth and was briefly challenging Raikkonen for third. Vettel won from Bottas and Raikkonen with Hamilton just off the podium in fourth. The top four were separated by just 5.5 seconds at the end of the race. Drivers: Hamilton: 345 Vettel: 302 Constructors: Mercedes: 625 Ferrari: 495