Mercedes have equalled the most races wins in a season by a team, as they completed a dominant 2015 season with a one-two finish. It was his first success at the Yas Marina circuit where Hamilton beat him in 2014 to take his second title.
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Under the desert floodlights Rosberg had enough up his sleeve to hold off Hamilton in the second round of pit stops to end the season in style and give him plenty of confidence for 2016.
The world champion stayed out for another 10 laps, losing around one second a lap to his team-mate. We had mistakes and problems but today (Sunday) was a bit better and everything was working well.
The Briton, who claimed his third world championship in Austin last month, pitted for a second time ten laps later than Rosberg in a bid to be on fresher tyres than his team-mate in the closing stages. “I’m really excited about how the season went. I think that in the end for Lewis the title mattered and I honestly also have to say that these last couple of races were great driving from Nico’s side”.
Kimi Raikkonen was a lonely third for Ferrari to seal fourth in the Drivers’ standings ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who cut through the field after starting a lowly 15th place. I don’t need any holidays! Valterri Bottas was going well with his Williams, but was charged with a five second penalty, when his team made an unsafe release of his vehicle, shaving the back end of McLaren’s Jenson Button and ripping off half of the Finn’s front wing. “I’m ecstatic. It’s always tough to race Lewis, it’s a great battle internally for us…”
“If Mercedes retain the leadership that you nearly expect from Mercedes, I’m afraid you could be finding the same thing, but don’t count out Rosberg”, Stewart is quoted as saying by the Press Association when asked if Hamilton could win a fourth title next year.
Can Ferrari take the fight to Mercedes next year? Of course we’re aware of the threat from the red guys, and we don’t them to come too close, and we’ll give it everything over the winter.
“It is a shame because I was quicker in the middle stint so to have that pace and then come out 11 seconds behind is not a good feeling”. “The 60,000 people that made up the seventh sell-out crowd in a row since we started in 2009, have generated an incredible atmosphere around the whole circuit”, he added. The race got off to an incident-packed start when Sauber’s Felipe Nasr slammed into the back of McLaren’s Fernando Alonso, who then hit Lotus’ Pastor Maldonado and spun off the track with the Venezuelan at the first corner, earning the Spaniard a drive through penalty.
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Despite fighting to regain the lead in the remaining laps, Rosberg began meeting traffic up ahead and that would have proved too hard for Hamilton to puncture. Hamilton led briefly before he followed him in.
