A Lewis Hamilton win and a Sebastian Vettel retirement in F1, a record WRC title win for Sébastien Loeb despite a retirement… and NASCAR's Kasey Kahne was also a victorious highlight this weekend… 
McLaren
McLaren
Outscored and largely out-performed by his McLaren team-mate Jenson Button, and the subject of a several controversies in 2011, Lewis Hamilton has had a season to forget – except the glittering Abu Dhabi GP, which the Englishman deservedly won yesterday.
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While it was a terrific drive for Lewis, there was a small slice of luck – good for him but bad for Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, who recorded his first DNF this year with a first-lap puncture which spun him out of the grand prix and meant he had to spectate from the Red Bull pitwall. The German, who loves Abu Dhabi, was naturally disappointed, though of course he is already the F1 world champion.
Citroën Racing Media
Citroën Racing Media
Sébastien Loeb made not only WRC but also motorsports history by clinching his eighth consecutive World Rally Championship title at the Rally of Great Britain in Wales. Mikko Hirvonen had already retired on Friday, meaning that Frenchman Loeb was able to crash his Citroën head-on into a random member of the public in a bizarre incident on the road stages, retire with radiator damage (which had also ended Hirvonen’s drive) and still take the title!
Ford in Europe
Ford’s Jari-Matta Latvala had been battling with Loeb for victory in his Ford Fiesta, and took the victory on Sunday.
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Getty Images
Kasey Kahne showed his class with a NASCAR Sprint Cup win in the Kobalt Tools 500 in Phoenix, Arizona. It was a first win for the #4 driver in 81 races stretching back to September 2009 in Atlanta, and the first for Red Bull Racing since a month earlier, when Brian Vickers won at Michigan in August of that year.
Lorenz Richard/Red Bull Content Pool/freestyle.ch
Frode Sandbech/Red Bull Content Pool
At the ‘Budapest Fridge’ big air festival in the heart of Hungary’s capital city, freeskier Elias Ambühl (pictured above, top) made it a second win in a row at the event, also following up his recent win at freestyle.ch in Switzerland, and was joined on the podium in Budapest by fellow Red Bull skier PK Hunder (above, bottom), his own third place this year coming after second place in 2010.
Red Bull Content Pool
The winter sports season is only just beginning, but Friday saw Austrian ski jumping star Thomas Morgenstern pick up his country’s ‘Athlete of the Year’ award for 2011, voted for by Austrian journalists, at a gala ceremony, edging out Benny Karl and Morgi’s friend and team-mate Gregor Schlierenzauer.
Red Bull Content Pool
Morgenstern, Andreas Kofler (centre) Schlierenzauer (right) and Martin Koch also picked up the team award.
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