Marcus Ericsson and Felipe Nasr finished fourteenth and fifteenth respectively, whilst a combative race from Max Verstappen saw him finish in sixteenth after tyre troubles and penalties for ignoring blue flags and overtaking off the circuit.
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Lewis Hamilton was only too keen to re-assert his world champion credentials despite Nico Rosberg’s bowing out of the season in commanding style with his win in the Abu Dhabi GP.
Nico Rosberg completed his end-of-season hat-trick of victories last night in a less than scintillating Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, in which his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton once again found himself fruitlessly chasing his elusive 44th triumph. Is this the start of the changing of the tide at Mercedes?
After his morale-boosting yet rather predictable victories in Mexico and Brazil-the first at a brand-new track, the second at a venue where Hamilton has failed to win in nine visits-this weekend’s season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was bound to offer a clearer indication of the extent of Rosberg’s resurgence.
Hamilton wrapped up the title at the United States Grand Prix in Texas last month but has had to play an increasingly irritated second fiddle to German rival Rosberg over the remaining three rounds.
“Austin was sort of the low point of the season”, he said.
“It was a tough weekend and since then I’ve just come back a lot stronger”.
He said: “I am excited by how the end of the season went”. Next year can come at any moment.
“I don’t know the big picture and ultimately you have to rely on the engineers to give you the optimum strategy”, he told reporters after the race. “I don’t need any holidays”.
The final race will be held on Sunday, November 29. Around 25 minutes into the race, Lewis Hamilton took a super-fast 2.2 seconds stop which kept him ahead of third-placed Raikkonen.
In the end, however, he had to settle for a distant second place in a race dominated by Rosberg from pole position. Before he came in, Hamilton had been losing up to 1.5 seconds per lap.
“I think in the race we could have been quite a bit closer but we had some issues at both pit stops so we lost some time and then I slowed down a bit”, Raikkonen stated.
“Just because I do other things outside of the sport I don’t think it’s a negative, it’s obviously been a positive impact on my career”, added the driver, who won his first title for McLaren in 2008.
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Rosberg thanked his team for their efforts in 2015, and revealed with the form he has shown in recent weeks that he would have liked to continue racing, but is already focusing on where he can improve next season.
