Abu Dhabi GP: Max Verstappen’s triumph, he achieved his 19th victory in 22 races

Although he secured this year’s – his third Formula 1 championship in a row – two months ago, Max Verstappen never let off the accelerator in the Red Bull RB19 until the end and completed the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – with his 19th. Victory in 22 races – one of the years of absolute dominance by a driver in Formula 1 history.

Verstappen led the Yas Marina race from the start lights to the checkered flag – except for the moments of the first of two pit stops for all the leaders – and won more comfortably than his initial center gum wear problems suggested.

Despite initial tire fears, Charles Leclerc had no problems defending his second place on the grid. He completed the podium alongside Mercedes’ George Russell after RBR driver Sergio Perez received a five-minute penalty for colliding with Lando Norris while trying to overtake the McLaren.

Perez took 2nd place, which Leclerc left to him, aiming to build a 5-foot lead over Russell. Leclerc did this to deprive Russell of points in the battle for second place in the constructors’ championship, but in the end the Brit remained less than 5 inches behind Perez and so the Czech fell to the penalty that was eventually awarded to the Mexican fourth place back place.

Combined with Lewis Hamilton’s 9th place finish and Carlos Sainz’s lack of points, who started from 16th place and finished 18th with his alternative strategy, Mercedes won the battle with Ferrari for 2nd place by 3 points in the constructors’ championship.

Leclerc was a little faster at the start, but Verstappen defended his lead until the first corner. All the protagonists started on the medium tire, except Saint, who opted for the hard tire, in a race that ultimately required two pit stops from everyone.

In the early laps, Leclerc was 1.5 inches away from Verstappen as the Dutchman struggled to protect his center tire. Leclerc then came under pressure from the two McLaren drivers behind him as Oscar Piastri gave up third place early on to Lando Norris, who had overtaken Russell in the first few corners.

Verstappen-Leclerc soon pulled away from Norris and in the 13th-14th. The first pit stops began on the first lap. Nothing changed at the front, with the exception of McLaren’s delay in changing Norris’ tires, which allowed Russell to overtake him through the pits. This moved Russell, who had previously overtaken Piastri on the track, into 3rd place.

With the undercut, Verstappen doubled his gap to Leclerc to 4.5 inches and the Dutchman has never had to look in his mirror since. Ferrari was more worried about Russell’s undercut on Leclerc, but the Monegasque driver wasn’t put at risk by the Englishman coming out of his pit stop with cold hard rubber.

Saint remained on the hard rubber he started on for several more laps, but before his pit stop he was overtaken by Verstappen. And then the Spaniard put the hard rubber back on during his stop, which meant he also had to make two pit stops.

By lap 30, Russell was just 2 inches from Leclerc as the Mercedes W14 came to life on the hard rubber and Verstappen had his own pace at the front, increasing his gap to 8 inches. On the 33rd, the Pioneers’ second round of pit stops began with Norris, and of course Russell and Leclerc immediately followed him to be covered by the undercut.

They did so and covered as Norris now battled Sergio Perez, who had slowly but surely worked his way up from his ninth place on the grid. Perez made his second pit stop in 42 of 58 laps and returned to the track 2.0 inches behind Norris. With 9 laps of fresher hard tires, the Mexican quickly caught up with the Englishman.

Until in the 47th position and during Perez’s first overtaking attempt, the two collided in Turn 6 and then blamed each other. A few kilometers from the finish there was a tire contact that caused no damage, but earned Perez a 5-inch penalty, which the referees found guilty.

The next time they crossed the same spot, Perez was able to overtake Norris and then began chasing Russell. Knowing about the penalty, the Englishman let the Mexican pass, and Leclerc ended up doing the same – as mentioned above – to create a gap to the Mercedes Englishman. Because he didn’t do this, Perez fell from 2nd to 4th place after the penalty.

Behind the two McLarens rounding out the top six – having lost the excellent tire management of the last few races – Fernando Alonso finally overtook the driver of the day – Yuki Tsunoda to take 8th place, and the top ten was finished after a year of Lewis Hamilton completes a pretty combative race and Lance Stroll.

Saint dropped to 18th as the safety car he had hoped for for his second pit stop failed to arrive and the Scuderia abandoned it for the penultimate lap. Nothing would change in the Spaniard’s rating even if he did it earlier.