2022 F1 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi — Results & aftermath

Verstappen caps historic championship season with win #15 in Abu Dhabi; Perez loses out to Leclerc for P2 in race and total points; Vettel bows out in style with point finish

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen capped off his second successive Formula 1 Championship season  in imperial style, dominating the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix for his record extending 15th win of the 22-round 2022 campaign. Starting from pole under the lights of the futuristic Yas Marina Circuit in this early evening-into-night race, Verstappen stormed away at the start and never truly relinquished his lead or faced a real challenge throughout this 58-lap contest. The Dutch master and his team made a one-stop strategy look easy while other struggled to execute it, a fitting metaphor for just how superior the RB-18 has been in Verstappen’s hands compared to any of the other contenders. In the end, Verstappen took the checkers nearly 9-seconds to the good of the P2 Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, a fitting end to what has been a truly historic F1 season by any era’s standards.

Pics courtesy GrandPirx247.com

However, that second place by Leclerc may also loom equally as large as Verstappen’s superlative accomplishments when the story of 2022 is recounted in years hence. Red Bull gambled on a split, two-stop strategy for their second driver, Sergio Perez, convinced that it was the best path for the Mexican to finish ahead of Leclerc and thereby claim second in the Drivers’ standings. But it didn’t work out, as Perez, who started alongside Verstappen on the grid in P2, lost vital track position when he made his second stop for a fresh set of Hard Pirellis on Lap 34, reemerging in P6 after conceding P2 to the hard-charging Lecerc. Ferrari may have also contributed to Red Bull’s move by relaying a dummy call to Leclerc about their own intentions of a two-stopper but in the end, Leclerc stayed out and ran his second set of tires all the way to the end, only having stopped back on Lap 21.

Crucially, the Ferrari seemed to really come alive on that set of Hard tires, whereas it struggled for consistant pace on the opening set of Mediums. Red Bull were hoping tire deg would doom the Ferarri and Perez’s many laps fresher rubber would prevail in the end. But Perez had to make so many overtakes in his final stint, including of sometimes recalcitrant back-markers, that the laps just ran out on the Mexican’s second-place dreams. Leclerc took P2 in the race by 1.3-seconds and that resulted in the Monegasque eeking out P2 in the Drivers’ Standings by a slim 3-points. While all seemed cordial in the post-race holding pen between Verstappen and his disappointed teammate, one wonders whether Verstappen’s rather petty decision not to allow Perez to overtake him at the end of the Brazilian GP last week will fester in Perez’s mind over the winter break and what it will mean for team dynamics next year.

For Leclerc, on other hand, that strong result in the final race ensured his runner-up states to Verstappen as truly the second best driver of the year despite hopes of perhaps challenging for the title. But after a strong start, Ferrari just couldn’t keep up with Red Bull’s pace of development or the superiority of the car in Verstappen’s peerless hands. Coupled with unforced errors on the pit wall and driver side, Ferrari had to be content to claim runners up in the Constructors’ title and to see Leclerc prevail over Perez for second in the Drivers’. The second Prancing Horse of Carlos Sainz capped off the strong effort in Abu Dhabi with a P4 finish and the fabled Scuderia from Maranello will now have the off-season to try and creep closer to Red Bull even as they watches Mercedes gain on them in the second half.

But much of Mercedes recent momentum appeared illusory at Yas Marina. While Lewis Hamilton and George Russell looked competitive at the start, it quickly became clear that they were once again back to being the third best team on the track, as they had been for much of the season. While Russell was able to salvage P5, he had nothing for Sainz’s Ferrari late in the race. And to add insult to a rare winless season for Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time champion DNF’d with terminal hydraulic failure on Lap 55, perhaps a residual effect from going airborne over the tall curbs while dicing with Sainz on the opening lap. While they were much improved after their woeful, porpoising-plagued start of the fist half, the Silver Arrows braintrust will be working long and hard over the winter to master this era’s tricky new aero formula, which has left them at a severe deficit to both Red Bull and Ferrari after a previous run of eight Constructors’ Titles under the prior formula.

Rounding out the Top 10, McLaren’s Lando Norris drove solidly to take P6 and teammate Daniel Ricciardo scored points in P9 in his last drive for the team after a very difficult year for the affable Aussie. Esteban Ocon was the lone Alpine to score in P7, his outgoing teammate Fernando Alonso having another retirement in a season plagued by them after a terminal water leak on Lap 28. And Aston Martin were able to bring both cars home in the points, with Lance Stroll finishing in P8 and Sebastian Vettel taking the last point in P10. While it was a far cry from his halcyon days when he was winning four titles on the trot for Red Bull, it was still a fine way for Vettel to drive off into the sunset and cap off what has surely been a Hall of Fame-worthy career. As has been said more than once this race weekend — Danke, Seb!

Top 10 finishers of the Abu Dhabi GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 1 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING RBPT 58 1:27:45.914 25
2 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 58 +8.771s 18
3 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING RBPT 58 +10.093s 15
4 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 58 +24.892s 12
5 63 George Russell MERCEDES 58 +35.888s 10
6 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 58 +56.234s 9
7 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 58 +57.240s 6
8 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 58 +76.931s 4
9 3 Daniel Ricciardo MCLAREN MERCEDES 58 +83.268s 2
10 5 Sebastian Vettel ASTON MARTIN ARAMCO MERCEDES 58 +83.898s 1

Complete race results available via Formula1.com.

The final Driver Standings are here.

And the final Constructor’s’ Standings are here.

With 2022 now done & dusted it’s time to ride out the void of the winter break as best we can and get ready for an even more competitive season next year where Ferrari will hopefully continue their progress towards Red Bull’s high water mark and Mercedes will join the party as a bona fide contender after showing massive improvement to their chassis in the second half of this season. Hope to see you in early March when F1 returns in Bahrain to kick off a jam-packed, potentially 24-round 2023 campaign!