Rosberg, returning to the Yas Marina Circuit for the first time since he lost out to Lewis Hamilton in last year’s title decider, won in emphatic fashion to seal a hat-trick of consecutive grands prix victories for the first time in his career.
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The chase was on under the desert floodlights, but Rosberg had the cushion of a controllable lead as he sped towards his third successive season-ending win with the aid of pit-wall crew keen to see a team one-two finish.
“You have to rely on the engineers to give you the optimum strategy at that point”, said Hamilton, who wrapped up his third world championship in Austin last month to win the drivers’ gong with three races to spare. “In hindsight once Nico had pitted I probably would have backed off and made those tyres last for a lot longer”, he said.
Despite losing out to Rosberg by 8.2 seconds, Hamilton retained the title, as he had secured it throughout the qualifying sessions – held ahead of the final race – of the 2015 Formula One Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend.
Abu Dhabi: Jackie Stewart, Britain’s first and until this season only triple Formula One world champion, would like to see Germany’s Nico Rosberg take the title off Mercedes team mate Lewis Hamilton in 2016.
He said: “I am excited by how the end of the season went”. Vettel completed two opening stints on the soft, gaining track position while all the supersoft runners stopped, before completing his own supersoft stint for 16 laps at the end of the race, in cooler track temperatures and with a much lighter auto. “I am happy, it was good fun”. Despite making some inroads into that gap, it was always going to be tough, even with fresher tires.
“It’s odd, I’m enjoying the moment so much – but I’m thinking already very much of next year what I could change and where I can improve”. Maybe it’s just Rosberg’s will to win and finish the season in style? No. But is it better for the sport, actually giving teams such as Red Bull Racing and McLaren a chance to fight back? But yes, I agreed that the driver is a significant part of the driver/car package and Lewis indicated some days ago that he doesn’t have the same good feeling in the vehicle as before – and if he says that then this is something that we have to consider. They also broke the single-season points record they set past year by two, despite the fact that double points weren’t on offer like they were in 2014’s finale. “We’re aware of the threat from the red guys (Ferrari) and we don’t want to let them get too close”, he added. “I’ll try to keep it going, the current form, starting next year”. The series has a very impressive crop of young and talented drivers that could be battling for podiums each week if the cars were equal, and GP2 champion Stoffel Vandoorne will hopefully earn a ride soon.
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As rumours continue to persist that Force India will soon become Aston Martin, the team capped off their 2015 season with a fine haul of points as Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Perez finished seventh and fifth respectively. He collided with Pastor Maldonado in the first lap after a small shunt from Felipe Nasr.
