Lewis Hamilton won for the 84th time in the 250th Grand Prix of his career. In the last race of the season, the Mercedes champion beat Red Bull driver Max Verstappen and Ferraris Charles Leclerc. Valtteri Bottas moved from 20th to fourth, Sebastian Vettel finished fifth. This brought Hamilton 25 points and sets now with a total of 412 points on a world record points record. The previous record came from last year, when Hamilton had brought 408 points. The points rule with 25 points for a win is valid since 2010, previously there had only been ten points for the winner.
The Briton was for weeks as a world champion, teammate Bottas had the second place in the overall ranking even before the race safely. Verstappen defended third place in Abu Dhabi ahead of Ferrari drivers Leclerc and Vettel.
The race result could change but later. The car of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc had been examined before the start. It was found that the amount of fuel in the car "significantly" from the official information Ferrari differed, as the stewards announced. Ferrari has to answer to the race commissioners.
Ferrari was last advised of allegedly not compliant gasoline flow rate under suspicion. In essence, it was about the Scuderia allegedly could have fed more fuel to the combustion process in the car than allowed and thus could gain more power.
There's a cloud over Leclerc's race ... # AbuDhabiGP # F1https: //t.co/M8sL4h41TB
- Formula 1 (@ F1) December 1, 2019At the start in Abu Dhabi, there were initially no changes in the first four drivers: Hamilton remained in front of Verstappen, Leclerc and Vettel. After the first corners Leclerc but drove an attack on Verstappen and overtook his front man, also Vettel attacked the Red Bull pilot from the slipstream, but initially did not pass. Meanwhile, Mercedes driver Bottas, started from last place, swiftly made up six places. The Finn had had to replace too many drive components on his car before the race and had therefore been moved backwards.
In the 13th round, Ferrari brought both cars into the pits, but Leclerc's stop was much faster than Vettel's. Leclerc came in fourth out of the lane, Vettel in seventh. From the 19th round the drivers were allowed to use their DRS systems, until then the use had been prohibited because of technical problems. Bottas advanced to fourth place, followed by Vettel.
After half of the race Verstappen first time in the pits and came in third place behind Leclerc back on the track. Shortly thereafter, he reported by radio but technical problems with the drive and the handbrake. But they did not seem to hinder him for long. A few laps later Verstappen set the gap of two seconds on Leclerc and overtook the Ferrari driver.
In his at least provisionally last Formula 1 race, the German pilot Nico Hulkenberg was twelfth. His contract with Renault had not been extended.
