The final race
in the era of deliberately high tyre degradation came to an end with
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and his
team mate Nico Rosberg finishing second to win the drivers’ world
championship for the first time.
Both Mercedes drivers used an identical two-stop strategy, starting on the
ultrasoft and then changing twice to the soft within a single lap of each
other on both occasions.
A different strategy was adopted by Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who used all
three compounds: starting on the ultrasoft, switching to the soft and then
ending the race on the supersoft. Vettel was the fastest man on the track in
the closing stages, moving up the leader board to threaten the leaders and
provide a dramatic finish to the race.
The only drivers in the top 10 not to start on the ultrasoft were the two
Red Bull drivers. Despite a spin at the start of the race following contact,
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was able to climb to second overall before making
his single stop. Verstappen was the only one of frontrunners to stop just
once, maximising his first supersoft stint to gain track position and
eventually finish fourth.
On Tuesday, the final development test for the completely new 2017 tyres
will take place, with Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari all taking to the track
with their modified 2015 mule cars together for the first time. The next
wider generation of tyres is designed to provide less degradation,
introducing a new philosophy for the technical revolution that will provide
even more performance next year.
Paul Hembery,
Pirelli motorsport director: “The decision taken by Red Bull yesterday
to start on the supersoft was pivotal to the race today, with Max Verstappen
making the most of a creative one-stop strategy to challenge the
two-stoppers. Sebastian Vettel also capitalised on the performance of the
supersoft to move up in the closing stages. Congratulations to Nico Rosberg
for winning his first world title, and we’d also like to take the
opportunity to pay tribute to Felipe Massa and Jenson Button, who both ended
their fantastic Formula 1 careers today. Now that the 2016 season is over,
our focus already switches to next year – starting on Tuesday, when we
undertake our final development test for the new 2017 wider tyres, using all
three mule cars together for the first time.”
Truthometer: Lewis Hamilton won the race using two pit stops, going from
ultrasoft to soft on laps eight and 29, as we expected. Rosberg followed an
identical strategy, stopping on each occasion a lap later. |