Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Lewis Hamilton has done it again. He not only enjoyed his 11th win of the 2019 season, ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, but he is also thrilled to be crowned Formula 1 World champion for the sixth time. It’s also the Briton’s fifth with Mercedes.
For his 50th pole-to-win of his career, this was perhaps Hamilton’s most straightforward victory this season. He also managed to maintain Mercedes’ 100 per cent win record at Abu Dhabi’s Grand Prix staged at Yas Marina since 2014. This victory means a lot to Hamilton as well as he tied his hero Ayrton Senna’s record for the 19th lights-to-flag victory of his career.
Hamilton said: “Honestly I’m proud, definitely, but just super grateful for this incredible team, to all at Mercedes who have continued to push this year. Who would have thought at the end of the year we’d have this strength in the race. Even though we had the championship won, I just really wanted to keep my head down and try to see if we could learn and if we could extend and extract more from this beautiful car, it’s a piece of art. Thank you for watching, thank you for supporting. I feel so happy.”
Meanwhile, Verstappen had to settle for second place, ahead of Ferrari’s Leclerc. However, Leclerc is set to be investigated after the race for a fuel discrepancy reported ahead of the start of the Grand Prix.
The thing is, even before the race started, there was an inquiry on his fuel discrepancy and a stewards’ directive issued an announcement that an investigation would be held 45 minutes before the lights went out. However, that was clearly far from Leclerc’s mind whilst racing as he made an incisive getaway from third on the grid before out dragging Verstappen for second into Turn 8.
Behind the podium trio, Valtteri Bottas recovered from a back-of-the-grid start to end up fourth, less than a second behind Leclerc. A penultimate lap pass by Sebastian Vettel on Alex Albon gave the Ferrari driver fifth, while a last-lap scrap between Lando Norris and Sergio Perez saw Perez come out on top to claim ‘best of the rest’ in P7, ahead of Norris.
Daniil Kvyat was ninth for Toro Rosso, while Carlos Sainz also made a last lap pass, on Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo, to take a point for P10 - enough to see him claim sixth in the drivers’ standings for 2019.
