Max Verstappen scored a comfortable 19th victory of the season ahead of Charles Leclerc at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to complete one of the most dominant campaigns in Formula 1 history.
Leclerc offered the reigning champion a stiff challenge off the line with a fractionally better start, but was hemmed onto the apex at the first turn, forcing him to find another way through.
The Ferrari driver got the better run out of the Turn 5 hairpin and was late on the brakes into turn 6, but Verstappen toughed it out around the outside to take the inside through the chicane exit at Turn 7.
Leclerc’s last chance was to look around the outside at the parabolic Turn 9, but the door was shut to him there too. He had no choice but to fall into line, allowing Verstappen a chance to break free from DRS reach by the time the drag reduction system was activated on the third lap.
Red Bull pre-empted the powerful undercut by bringing the Dutchman in for his first stop early, on lap 16, ensuring he remained well out of reach when Leclerc stopped on the following tour. All that was left for him to do was to massage open the gap to an eventual 17.9s to claim the final win of the year.
“It was an incredible season,” he said. “It was a bit emotional on the in-lap – it was the last time I was sitting in the car which has given me a lot.
“I have to say a big thank you to everyone at Red Bull. It’s been an incredible year. It will be hard to do something similar again, but we definitely enjoyed this year.”
Fireworks light the sky as the Red Bull Racing team cheer Max Verstappen finishing the year the way he started. Glenn Dunbar/Motorsport Images
Sergio Perez finished second on the road after being waved past by Charles Leclerc in a bizarre ending to the battle for the the podium.
Perez had been recovering from ninth on the grid with a late second stop that put him on an aggressive final stint to haul himself up the order. But the Mexican wasn’t clean in his forward parries, fumbling an attempted overtake on Lando Norris for fourth place at the chicane.
Perez dived down the McLaren’s inside but washed out slightly wide, banging wheels with the Briton and sending him spearing off the road. The stewards took a dim view of the incident and slapped him with a 5s penalty for causing a collision, to be applied after the flag.
His pace was nonetheless strong, and before long Perez was breathing down the necks of Leclerc and George Russell, who had spent the race closely matched in second and third. With Ferrari and Mercedes locked in a four-point battle for second in the constructors standings, Leclerc spied an opportunity to put his thumb on the scales.
When Perez barged past Russell with four laps remaining, Leclerc slowed, allowing the Red Bull Racing driver to speed past him down the back straight in the hope that in clean air he could build enough of a gap to partially offset his penalty.
If Perez dropped to third, behind Leclerc but ahead of Russell, the points difference would be enough to move Ferrari up to second. It was a good plan in theory, but the lap count conspired against it. Perez ran out of time to build the gap, falling short by just 1.125s.
Leclerc and Russell were promoted back to second and third, and Mercedes sealed the runner-up position in the championship.
“I tried to give him DRS and a slipstream, but that unfortunately wasn’t really enough,” Leclerc lamented. “On a weekend like this there wasn’t one thing we could’ve done better. We did an incredible job, doing everything right … it’s just a shame that we finished third in the constructors.”
Russell said he was nervous in the final five laps as he waited for the arithmetic to shake out.
“Checo came from nowhere,” he said. “I don’t know what happened there, but he had great pace.
“It was really tense at the end. The tires were dropping off. I’m really pleased to have secured P2 for the team.”
Lando Norris claimed fifth despite an attempt to undercut his way onto the podium with an early second stop. He was comfortably covered by Russell and Leclerc ahead of him on subsequent laps and was later no match for the recovering Perez.
His McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, finished 7s behind him, having been slower in the opening stint and then losing race time by having to pit second in both stop windows on an evening the undercut was usually very powerful.
Fernando Alonso finished seventh in a vain attempt to lift Aston Martin back to fourth in the constructors standings ahead of McLaren.
Yuki Tsunoda finished eighth as the best-placed entry on a one-stop strategy. The Japanese driver led the race for the first time in his career before his first stop and was exhibiting strong pace, but his tires faded badly late, dropping him from his target of sixth — which would have elevated AlphaTauri to seventh in the standings ahead of Williams — to eighth.
Lewis Hamilton almost made it ninth but couldn’t make a move through Turn 9 stick, leaving him ninth ahead of Lance Stroll.
Daniel Ricciardo finished 11th ahead of Esteban Ocon and a frustrated Pierre Gasly, who saw a points finish evaporate to poor strategy decisions to pit late, handing undercuts to all his chief rivals.
Alex Albon was 14th ahead of Nico Hulkenberg, Logan Sargeant, Carlos Sainz — who save his final pit stop until the final lap in the hope of picking up a safety car that never came — Valtteri Bottas and Kevin Magnussen.
