2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Lore & Background

The previous year's race winner Nico Rosberg entered the round with a twelve-point lead over his teammate Lewis Hamilton in the World Drivers' Championship. Their team, Mercedes, held a lead of two hundred and seventy-six points over Red Bull Racing in the World Constructors' Championship. Rosberg required a podium finish to secure the championship; Hamilton required a podium to remain in mathematical contention. Hamilton started the race from pole and went on to win the race, while Rosberg finished second, securing his only World Drivers' Championship title. Sebastian Vettel completed the podium in third.

Reader's Guide

Lewis Hamilton held the lead from a cautious Nico Rosberg at the first corner of the race. Kimi Räikkönen gained third position from Daniel Ricciardo, with Vettel, Pérez, Hülkenberg, Alonso, Massa and Bottas completing the top ten positions at the end of the first lap. Max Verstappen spun and fell to 19th position after gently touching Nico Hülkenberg's Force India at the start. The RBR cars started the race on the more durable super soft tyres unlike the other top 10 cars who all started on ultra softs.

By the 5th lap of the race, Verstappen had recovered to 13th position and only 19 seconds behind the leader, Hamilton. Kevin Magnussen, who had pitted in the first lap with a broken nose after a touch in the start, retired from the race on lap 5 with suspension damage. The Force India and Williams teammates were fighting hard for 6th and 9th positions, respectively with Alonso holding position between the two teams' drivers. Bottas was forced to retire on lap 6 with a suspension issue.

Mercedes and Ferrari brought their lead cars (Hamilton and Räikkönen) in for their first pitstop on lap 7, and their following cars (Rosberg and Vettel) in subsequent laps. Red Bull also chose to react by pitting Ricciardo at this time, fitting the yellow-walled Soft tyres as did all the other front running cars at this point. The Mercedes of Rosberg had a 1.6s gap to the Ferrari of Räikkönen and maintained his position to the Ferrari after the pit stop, but now finding the yet to pit Red Bull of Verstappen between himself and Hamilton leading the race.

In what was at the time expected to be his last Formula One race, Jenson Button was forced to retire with broken right front suspension on lap 12 from 8th position. Daniil Kvyat was the next retirement from the race with gearbox problems on lap 14, from 16th position. Meanwhile, Rosberg was advised by the Mercedes pitwall to not take any risks with Verstappen, believing that he will pit soon allowing Rosberg to emerge back into clean air. However, RBR took advantage of this conservative approach from Mercedes and chose to run Verstappen as long as they could in the first stint in order to complete the race on a 1-stop strategy and holding up Rosberg in the process.

The risk posed by Verstappen's strategy to Rosberg became apparent soon, with Räikkönen following Rosberg close by and Vettel fast approaching this group.

Did You Know?

• A week after the Grand Prix, Rosberg announced his retirement from Formula One, making this Grand Prix his last.
• This was also the last Grand Prix for the Manor team, as the team folded before the start of the 2017 season.
• This would also prove to be the last Grand Prix for Esteban Gutiérrez and Felipe Nasr.
• This was expected to be the final Grand Prix for Jenson Button though he would later deputise for Fernando Alonso at the 2017 Monaco Grand Prix.