VETTEL HAS LAST CHEER
The 2009 season was pretty much over - Jenson Button is the new world champion. Except that there was still one race to go - the first ever Abu Dhabai Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Speedway. Bernie's latest trick - spread both qualifying and the race over day and night. Also have the pitlane coming out of a tunnel. Throw in facilities so classy Bernie was drooling over them and you have what was potentially an interesting race. Slight problem, it was also F1's first dead rubber since '05. Still , it was a chance for everyone to sign off with a degree of class and 2nd place in the championship was still up for grabs between Vettel and Barrichello.
In qualifying, well Q1 started in daylight and the Brits had no problems whatsoever. Alonso wasn't so lucky and everyone was stunned to find him getting cut out of the action early on. Q2, again no problems for the Brits but again, a foemer world champion, this time Raikonen found himself biting the dust. As night fell, Q3 got underway and Buemi of all people was the first guy to set a hot time. Then it was Heidfeld, then Kubica, then Webber, then Jenson, then Trulli, the Barrichello, then Lewis then Webber again briefly before came back to claim his fourth pole of the season. Jenson wound up having to settle for P5. Now it was a case of seeing what the race held.
Well Lewis had a great run at the start of the race and after the first few laps looked unstoppable. In F1 there's no such thing though and he ran into break problems early on that compromised his ability to race. That meant that he lost the lead due to being over-cautious. He tried to get back in the picture but the analysts at the garage soon had other ideas and the 2008 world champion was told "we're unable to continue racing". Into the garage he went, suffering his first mechanical failiure since the dire early stages of the season. Still, though the legend-in-the-making will be dissapointed with how 2009 has gone, in the end he could have done a lot worse.
Jenson had at classy start, making his way up to 4th immediately, was bouncing up and down throughout the first round of pitstops before eventually staying in 4th and then he took advantage of Kobayashi pitting to make his way up to 3rd. As night fell the race started to wind down and Jenson didn't look like getting much further up. Late on he closed in on Webber for a quick duel...except it was one he never had a realistic chance of winning. 3rd wasn't a bad result and ultimately, he'd say it didn't matter where he'd finished that day. He was still the 2009 world champion and had nothing to prove to anyone in this race. 2010 will be another matter entirely but that can wait.
Once Lewis had to pull out of the race though, it was Vettel that was allowed to run the show and the German cruised into a solid lead, Red Bull clearly knew what they were doing on this track. After that, no one was able to challenge Vettel. His title chances had been blown in the previous race but this time around he was able to secure 2nd place in the championship(best result for a German since Michael Schumacher's retirement) and take his fourth win of the season. Webber was able to back him up for 2nd place and Red Bull's 4th 1-2 of the season. Christian Horner says that his guys will be faster next year. They'll certainly be in the picture.
In the meantime, Jenson Button officially wins the world championship with a total of 95 points and a final lead of eleven points. Further down, what to some extent is more impressive is Lewis finishing 5th with 49 points. Firstly, that's the best defence a Brit has made of an F1 world championship in my lifetime. It matches James Hunt's 1977 effort. It was also the first time two Brits had finished in the top five of the world championship since Eddie Irvine and David Coulthard in '99!
Roll on 2010!
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