Race Report - The Trilogy

BY DAN KNUTSON IN ABU DHABI

Nico Rosberg ended his Formula 1 season with the perfect trilogy - three poles and three wins - and, of course, on each of those occasions he beat his highly rated Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton.

"This is the perfect ending to the season for me," he said, "something I hoped for so much after a tough year. To finish with six poles and three wins in a row is awesome. I am so happy that I found some performance at the end of the season. I also made my peace with this track after the toughest moment of my career here last year, which is a nice feeling. Today was really a perfect race. The start, the pit stops and the tire management were all really good and I felt like I had it all under control."

Not getting the pole really hampered Hamilton's chances of winning, and so too did the fact that, unlike last year, he failed to beat Rosberg into the first corner just after the start. Hamilton's only hope was to do a two stop race rather than pitting three times like Rosberg did, and thus try to hold on to the lead in the closing stages of the race on a well-worn set of the Pirelli medium compound tires. His engineer disagreed.

"In hindsight once Nico pitted I would probably have backed off a little bit," Hamilton said, "and I would have made those tires go a lot longer. The tires were still fine at the end so I honestly felt that I could potentially have taken them to the end. But as that didn't work out, going too long was probably not the right thing to do - but y'know, we gave it a try and did the best job I could with it."

Hamilton led twice during the 55 lap race. The first time was on lap 11 during the first round of pit stops. The second time was lap 31 to 41 when he thought he could make that set of tires last but eventually stopped for new rubber.

Kimi Raikkonen started third in his Ferrari and spent most of the race in third place before finishing on the podium for the third time this season.

"It has been a nice and clean weekend, the car was handling well and we had no issues," he said. "In the race I was pretty happy with the speed and everything ran smoothly. We only had a small delay in the pit stops, which dropped us off a bit and we did not manage to really challenge the Mercedes. I think today we could have been closer, but third place here is an OK result, even if we always want to win and challenge for that."

Sebastian Vettel and Ferrari made the mistake in the first qualifying session of thinking the lap time on soft tires would be fast enough to advance him to Q2. It was not and as a result he started the race in 16th place. By using the soft tire, the top 10 and most of the rest started on the super soft Pirellis, Vettel managed to climb to second place by lap 11. He eventually finished fourth.

"We followed the plan and I knew that the most important part of the race to make up ground would be once those who started with the super softs pitted," he said. "It was good to see that we had the pace and could keep the tires alive. In this regards the second stint was not as strong, especially in the end when I was losing a bit of pace, as I seemed to struggle with lapping cars.

"Lapping Fernando (Alonso) and letting Kimi (Raikkonen) by cost me a bit of time, but after that I was able to match Sergio Perez's lap times. The plan was to do the same as on the first stint and come out in front of him, but we had the super soft tire in the last stint and that was a big advantage to clear traffic and pass him."

Vettel took fourth away from Force India's Perez with 10 laps to go.

"We pushed hard to try and beat Vettel today," Perez said, "but he had too much pace on the super softs and it wasn't possible to hold him back. The rest of the race was straightforward for me, with no big dramas, because I was on my own looking after the tires.

"When I was running fourth I was pushing very hard to stay within Vettel's pit window, which took a lot from my tires and meant that (Daniel) Ricciardo was able to get close to me at the end of the race. Fortunately I had enough left to hold him off. I think we got the maximum that was available to us and we can be proud of our performance."

Ricciardo finished sixth in his Red Bull.

"A top 5 would have been a bit sweeter," he said, "but I couldn't hold off Seb (Vettel) whom we expected to get past us more towards the end of the race. I held him off for a lap and then, especially on those Options, his pace was so much quicker. I tried to get Perez, but couldn't get close enough.

"At the start I had a sniff at (Nico) Hulkenberg and went for it and that paid off. Parts of it were fun. I would have liked more battles though, but it looked quite spread out. It's a circuit I enjoy fighting on. I have confidence in the big braking zones here. I think we ended the season well and feel I got the most out of the car, so I'm leaving the season more happy than I was a few races ago."

Nico Hulkenberg wound up seventh in his Force India.

"The race was a bit of a struggle at times," he said, "and I had a hard job on my hands. The start was pretty good: everyone went to the inside so I stuck to the outside. It was a brave move and I was able to make up a few places. However, I had a lot of understeer and it was difficult to get the car to turn in, especially at a track with so many tight corners, so I suffered in the first two stints. The final part of the race was a bit better and I was able to get into a rhythm, which was important to keep our position."

Felipe Massa was not happy with eighth place.

"It was a very tough race," the Williams driver said, "but not much happened apart from trying to overtake a car with very similar pace. We didn't have the pace we wanted and we've paid the price in the last few races. This is a poor way to end the season."

By contrast Romain Grosjean was delighted to finish ninth in his last race for Lotus.

"It's been an emotional journey for me," he said, "and I'm so happy to be able to reward everyone at Enstone with points in my final race for the team. I had to push all the way and it wasn't always plain sailing as there was a lot to manage on the car. The calls from the pit wall were great and my pit stops were fantastic. I owe a lot to this team and it really feels like a family to me. I hope to be back one day in the future. This has been the best season of my career."

Daniil Kvyat rounded out the top 10 in his Red Bull.

"It was good that we managed to finish," he said, "and I was happy with my pace in the first half of the race. So, up until about midway, it looked as though we could have had a really strong race, as I was controlling Massa and attacking Hulkenberg, but then we had electronic issues and we had to give up the fight in a way. From then on we were losing a lot of time on the straight.

"Almost every lap we had to do something about our electronic issues, so under the circumstances, we did absolutely the best job we could today and I'm happy about that. Our focus from now is 2016 and if we can make some steps forward over the winter, we will be happy."

Kvyat summed up the mood of all the teams and drivers. Whether they did a good or bad job this season, they are all now looking ahead to 2016 and a fresh start.

That includes Rosberg, but first he wants to savor his trilogy.

"At the moment I'm just enjoying now, enjoying the wins," he said after the race. "I'm going to party tonight, I'm enjoying the fun, enjoying that I progressed also a lot in the end of the season, too late for the championship of course, but so great now to have it and that's it. I can't tell you about next year unfortunately, but I'll give it everything."