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Max Verstappen ended a frustrating season for Red Bull with victory at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
The Dutchman took his second victory of the year ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes, who were unable to challenge in second and third place.
An early safety car blocked the leaders’ strategies and led to a soporific race.
McLaren took third place in the constructors’ championship while Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz took fifth and sixth places.
The award for renewing Racing Point, which started the race 10 points ahead but for whom Lance Stroll was able to finish only 10th as his teammate Sergio Pérez retired early, is in the region of $ 10 million (£ 7.5 million) in prizes.
Red Bull’s Alexander Albon was fourth, 20 seconds behind his teammate Verstappen, but close enough to Mercedes to block any choice of adventurous strategy, as the team weighs whether to retain the British-Thai driver for 2021.
Too little too late
Verstappen had the kind of performance that Red Bull started the year promising, but failed to deliver in the face of overwhelming Mercedes superiority.
After taking a surprise pole position, the Dutchman held the lead early and was in control at all times.
When Pérez’s Racing Point pulled into the final sector of the circuit after just 10 laps, the safety car was called in and forced most of the teams to pit for new tires and race to the end of the race.
Mercedes opted to stack Hamilton behind Bottas instead of betting on running the world champion for the longest time, betting the time gained by a stop under caution rather than betting on having to fight in the second half of the race with a strategy of compensation.
That meant the rest of the race degenerated into a tire conservation cruiser.
Bottas couldn’t keep up with Verstappen and slowly walked away from Red Bull.
Hamilton sat in the region of two or three seconds behind his teammate for much of the race, apparently with more pace, but was unable or unwilling to get close.
Hamilton also said he was battling fatigue in the race as a result of the aftermath of contracting the coronavirus, which forced him to miss last weekend’s Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain.
McLaren wins big
Albon had an anonymous race in fourth place, while the year ended with a great record for McLaren.
Racing Point has been the fastest car for much of the year, but McLaren and its drivers have maximized its potential for greater spin and have stayed in the fight despite a strong second part of the season from their team. rivals.
That kept them in the fight and they delivered the race they needed when it mattered.
Norris made a good start and led Albon through the opening laps, before inevitably succumbing. He and Sainz drove calmly and consistently for the remainder of the race to secure the championship position they desired.
It was a good day for McLaren on two fronts, after they confirmed a significant cash boost from an investment by a US consortium that will take a third of the team’s equity capital by the end of 2022.
Daniel Ricciardo raced a long first season in his Renault on hard tires to turn an 11th place start into seventh at the end, ahead of Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly, while Renault’s Esteban Ocon took Stroll’s ninth place in the last lap.
Driver of the day
Whats Next?
Shattered at the end of 17 races spread over five and a half months, teams and drivers are heading into a short offseason with some changes to be made to their cars ahead of preseason testing in late February.
The next season will kick off in Melbourne in mid-March, but with the pandemic still raging, who knows what 2021 will bring?
