Ham’s the man in Abu Dhabi to win race & World Championship, Rosberg’s dream stymied by gremlins; Massa & Bottas fill out podium to cap resurgent 2014 for Williams

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton grabbed his second Divers’ World Championship in the last race of the season with a flawless performance in Abu Dhabi. Starting from second position on the grid the Englishman shot by his pole-sitting teammate and closest Championship pursuer, Nico Rosberg, and never looked back. Meanwhile, Rosberg was forced to deal with a plethora of ERS-related gremlins just before midway through the race that robbed his car of critical horsepower and crippled his ability to put up a fight for the title. In a season where the only challenges to the Mercedes factory team have been occasional reliability issues, the finale showed the duality of the awesomeness and the frustrations inherent in any ultra-high performance machine. Rosberg was left to hope in vain that Hamilton’s identical car would suffer the same problems as his machine. It didn’t happen and the Englishman, who showed improved maturity in overcoming technical issues of his own throughout the year, sailed away into the desert sunset of the Gulf kingdom to grab the ultimate prize for any Formula 1 driver. With the way that Hamilton drove down the stretch to win six of the last seven races and a whopping 11 of 19 total Grand Prix, few would argue that he didn’t deserve it.

Taking full advantage of Rosberg’s technical misery and putting an exclamation point on their amazing comeback season, the Williams team claimed the other positions on the podium, with Felipe Massa the only driver to even hint at pressuring Hamilton in P2 and Valtteri Bottas coming good in 3rd after a poor start. With the switch to the dominant Mercedes power plant after last year’s Renault-powered debacle and the increased role of Claire Williams in the team, as well as the major sponsorship of Martini, Williams finished a remarkable 3rd in the Constructors’ Championship. And while the veteran and longtime Ferrari man Massa suffered his fair share of misfortune in his first year with Williams, his addition to the team seemed to lend a spark to the development of the chassis throughout the season that perfectly complimented the burgeoning young talent of Valtteri Bottas and made for a potent one-two punch that could even challenge the dominant Silver Arrows under the right conditions. Throw in the in-season addition of Massa’s main man Rob Smedley as Head of Vehicle Performance and Williams looks poised to perhaps give Red Bull and maybe even Mercedes a run for their money in 2015.

And speaking of Red Bull, it seems hard to keep in mind that they did in fact take second in the Constructors’ standings. Sunday’s race was a typical one as far as results, although quite impressive when one considers that both cars had to start from Pit Lane after being excluded from Qualifying with illegal front wings, with Daniel Ricciardo once again overcoming the limits of the RB10 chassis to finish 4th and Sebastian Vettel unable to recreate his brilliance of the past four seasons and coming home P8. Ricciardo has been a revelation this year and if Red Bull can ever find the necessary power from their Renault engines under the turbo regulations he will be a driver to watch for the Championship. Vettel, meanwhile, heads to Ferrari, a team in turmoil after firing Matteo Mattiaci on Monday in favor of Maurizio Arrivabene, making for the Prancing Horse’s third race director in under a year. One has to wonder if Vettel is up to the task of returning the fabled Scuderia back to the Promised Land with a technical team that seems perpetually at a loss for ways to improve the performance of the car. It could well be that the German four-time World Champion’s glory days are behind him.

As if to prove that point outgoing Ferrari ace Fernando Alonso, who looks to be headed to McLaren next year, could do no better than P9, while Kimi Raikkonen, who is staying on after a very disappointing effort this season, took the last points-paying position in 10th. Force India had a wonderful day in Abu Dhabi, with Nico Hulkenberg grabbing 6th and Sergio Perez taking 7th, extremely valuable points for this year’s best of the small teams. One hopes that Force India keeps this driver line up for next year because the young duo did a lot more right than wrong and really over performed as a unit, enabling the team to take an impressive 6th place in the Constructors’ standings with all the vital financial payoff that entails.

McLaren’s Jenson Button was 5th in the race driving in his typically fluid and error-free style. If this was Button’s last F1 Grand Prix after a decorated 14-year career, as all the rumors would suggest, it was a fine effort in a car that has been uncompetitive all season. I feel that Button, the 2008 World Champion for Brawn, is one of those drivers who is going to look even better after he has been out of Formula 1 for a few years. Unspectacular, undramatic but always unfailingly professional and always striving to give the maximum effort for the success of his teams, he should go down as one of the best British drivers in a fairly crowded field. And with his win on Sunday and his second overall World Championship, Button’s longtime teammate Lewis Hamilton, who boldly ditched McLaren in favor of Mercedes two years ago, is certainly in that conversation. In fact, with a few more seasons like this superlative one, it could even be that someday we will be arguing if Hamilton is the best British driver of all time.

Top 10 finishers here:

Complete results available at Formula1.com.

As we head into the fairly short off season, let’s think a good thought for Jules Bianchi, who was reported to have come out of his induced coma and is breathing on his own and will be sent home to France to continue his recovery. While people have been loath to put it in precisely these terms, Bianchi’s accident at Suzuka was undoubtedly the worst on-track episode in Formula 1 since Ayrton Senna’s death in 1994. And just as with Senna, Formula 1 seem determined to learn from the mistakes that were made directly prior to Bianchi’s terrible off and further improve safety for drivers, marshals and spectators. Since the death of Senna, Formula 1 has not only been the highest level of motorsport but also arguably the safest. But that takes constant effort and attention to detail and it is unfortunate that it took the critical injury of one of their drivers to remind everyone of that this year. The biggest threat to safety in motorsport is always complacency and Jules Bianchi’s awful accident certainly brought that home again after so many years of seemingly risk free racing.

Until next season!