2012 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX (Race)

[DavidV]

Well, Rosberg is not going to finish this race.
He hit Kartikhejan's HRT and went flying over it, ending in the barriers, causing a safety car situation.

[DavidV]

And Raikkonen wins his first race this year!
A very exiting last few laps, where Vettel passes Button to 3rd place, Alonso finishing 2nd.

[DavidV]

Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as Sebastian Vettel held on to his championship lead despite starting from the pit lane.
Raikkonen inherited the lead when Lewis Hamilton's McLaren retired.
Vettel fought back up through the field, benefited from a safety car period that wiped out early errors, to finish third behind title rival Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.
Alonso has narrowed Vettel's lead to 10 points with two races to go.

In a thrilling, nail-biting, incident-packed race that belied the Yas Marina track's reputation, Hamilton initially looked set to take a dominant win.
The McLaren driver led away from pole and, apart from a brief scare when he made a mistake while struggling to warm up his tyres in the early laps and had to fight off an attack from Raikkonen, appeared in control.
Hamilton was in the region of half a second a lap quicker than Raikkonen behind him when his car ground to a halt on lap 20 of 55, continuing a dismal run of relaibilty from McLaren in recent races.
That left Raikkonen in the lead, and he appeared in control, edging away from Alonso, who had passed Williams's Pastor Maldonado to take second place on the lap Hamilton retired.
Meanwhile, Vettel had been working his way through the field after starting from the pit lane following his disqualification from qualifying for not having enough fuel in his car to provide a sample.
The German damaged his front wing in a collision with Williams's Bruno Senna but that barely impeded his progress through the backmarkers.
However, the safety car was then deployed following a frightening crash in which Nico Rosberg's Mercedes was launched over the back of Narain Karthikeyan's HRT.
In the queue behind the safety car, Vettel misjudged the pace of Daniel Ricciardo's Toro Rosso behind him, had to take avoiding action and smashed into a trackside marker board.
The impact wrecked his front wing but actually worked to his advantage, as it forced the German into the pits for a new wing and he put on a new set of fresh tyres.
He made superb use of these in the next few laps, climbing through the field, making passes and benefiting from some lurid incidents between other drivers in front of him to climb up to seventh place by the time the leaders started to make their pit stops for fresh tyres.
Those stops promoted Vettel to second place behind Raikkonen and Lotus believed Red Bull might be trying to get to the end of the race without stopping again.
Instead, Vettel pitted again on lap 37 for another set of tyres, rejoining fourth about 15 seconds behind the lead group of Raikkonen, Alonso and McLaren's Jenson Button.
Two laps later, an incident between Sauber's Sergio Perez, Lotus's Romain Grosjean and Red Bull's Mark Webber brought out the safety car again and wiped out Vettel's deficit.
It set up a thrilling climax to the race.
The race was restarted with 13 laps to go and as Raikkonen quickly built a three-second lead, Vettel immediately started to pressure Button for third.
Button appeared to have the Red Bull under control but then Vettel made a final push and managed to pass Button for third around the outside into Turn 11 and then taking the inside into Turn 12 on lap 52.
Meanwhile, with seven laps to go Alonso's Ferrari began to come alive and he started closing in on Raikkonen in the lead.
Alonso got the lead down to a second but Raikkonen just held on.
Maldonado took fifth ahead of Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi.
Ferrari's Felipe Massa, Senna, Force India's Paul di Resta and Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo completed the top 10.

After 55 of 55 laps

Position	Driver		Team
Fastest lap: S Vettel 1:43.964 on lap 54
1	Finland	K Raikkonen	Lotus
2	Spain	F Alonso	Ferrari
3	Germany	S Vettel	Red Bull
4	Great Britain	J Button	McLaren
5	Venezuela	P Maldonado	Williams
6	Japan	K Kobayashi	Sauber
7	Brazil	F Massa	Ferrari
8	Brazil	B Senna	Williams
9	Great Britain	P Di Resta	Force India
10	Australia	D Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
11	Germany	M Schumacher	Mercedes
12	France	J Vergne	Toro Rosso
13	Finland	H Kovalainen	Caterham
14	Germany	T Glock	Marussia
15	Mexico	S Perez	Sauber
16	Russian Federation	V Petrov	Caterham
17	Spain	P de la Rosa	HRT
18	France	C Pic (ret.)	Marussia
19	France	R Grosjean	Lotus
20	Australia	M Webber	Red Bull
21	Great Britain	L Hamilton (ret.)	McLaren
22	India	N Karthikeyan	HRT
23	Germany	N Rosberg	Mercedes
24	Germany	N Hulkenberg	Force India

Position	Driver		Team	Pts
Last updated: Sunday, 4 November 2012 14:57 UK
1	Germany	S Vettel	Red Bull	255
2	Spain	F Alonso	Ferrari	245
3	Finland	K Raikkonen	Lotus	198
4	Australia	M Webber	Red Bull	167
5	Great Britain	L Hamilton	McLaren	165
6	Great Britain	J Button	McLaren	153
7	Brazil	F Massa	Ferrari	95
8	Germany	N Rosberg	Mercedes	93
9	France	R Grosjean	Lotus	90
10	Mexico	S Perez	Sauber	66
11	Japan	K Kobayashi	Sauber	58
12	Germany	N Hulkenberg	Force India	49
13	Great Britain	P Di Resta	Force India	46
14	Venezuela	P Maldonado	Williams	43
15	Germany	M Schumacher	Mercedes	43
16	Brazil	B Senna	Williams	30
17	France	J Vergne	Toro Rosso	12
18	Australia	D Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	10
19	Germany	T Glock	Marussia	0
20	Finland	H Kovalainen	Caterham	0
21	Russian Federation	V Petrov	Caterham	0
23	France	C Pic	Marussia	0
24	India	N Karthikeyan	HRT	0
25	Spain	P de la Rosa	HRT	0

Source BBC.CO.UK/F1

[Sticky]

Well this just seems to be a common theme, Mercedes gets no points and has a poor race. Call it bad luck if you want but it is happening far too often. Nico Rosberg did not finish the race due to an accident, unfortunate. Michael Schumacher did ok but failed to get any points finishing in 11th place. Sebastian Vettel surprisingly managed to finish in 3rd place fighting his way onto the podium after a penalty during qualifying forced him to start the race at the back of the grid.

Kimi Raikonen won the race, his first victory of the year so congratulations to him. Fernando Alonso finished in second making it a tighter race towards the end for the championship between him an Vettel. With two races remaining the finish will be interesting. The next race is the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas on the 18th this month.

2012 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	9	Kimi Räikkönen	Lotus-Renault	55	1:45:58.667	4	25
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	55	+0.8 secs	6	18
3	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	55	+4.1 secs	24	15
4	3	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	55	+7.7 secs	5	12
5	18	Pastor Maldonado	Williams-Renault	55	+13.0 secs	3	10
6	14	Kamui Kobayashi	Sauber-Ferrari	55	+20.0 secs	15	8
7	6	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	55	+22.8 secs	8	6
8	19	Bruno Senna	Williams-Renault	55	+23.5 secs	14	4
9	11	Paul di Resta	Force India-Mercedes	55	+24.1 secs	12	2
10	16	Daniel Ricciardo	STR-Ferrari	55	+27.4 secs	16	1
11	7	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes	55	+28.0 secs	13
12	17	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Ferrari	55	+34.9 secs	17
13	20	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham-Renault	55	+47.7 secs	18
14	24	Timo Glock	Marussia-Cosworth	55	+56.4 secs	21
15	15	Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari	55	+56.7 secs	11
16	21	Vitaly Petrov	Caterham-Renault	55	+64.5 secs	20
17	22	Pedro de la Rosa	HRT-Cosworth	55	+71.7 secs	22
Ret	25	Charles Pic	Marussia-Cosworth	41	Engine	19
Ret	10	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	37	Accident	9
Ret	2	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing-Renault	37	Accident	2
Ret	4	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	19	Fuel pressure	1
Ret	23	Narain Karthikeyan	HRT-Cosworth	7	Accident	23
Ret	8	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	7	Accident	7
Ret	12	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	0	Accident	10