Red Bull Motorsports
F1
Verstappen ends 2019 with 2nd place at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
A spirited drive and a masterful overtake gives Aston Martin Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen another second place to end the 2019 F1 season third in the drivers' standings
Max Verstappen ended his 2019 Formula One campaign with a ninth visit to the podium after a superb drive at the Yas Marina Circuit to beat the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc to second place.
Verstappen qualified third, but started second for the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as Valtteri Bottas was handed a grid penalty for an engine change and forced to start 20th. At the start, Verstappen followed pole-position man Lewis Hamilton into the first corner, quickly finding himself in a battle with the two Ferrari cars of Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel.
By the end of the first lap, Verstappen was sandwiched between the two Ferraris in third place as his team-mate Alex Albon settled into fifth and Scuderia Toro Rosso’s Pierre Gasly was forced to pit after just one lap with damage sustained shortly after the start – a stark change of fortunes following his podium last time out at the Brazilian Grand Prix.
By lap five, with DRS (Drag Reduction System) disabled due to a technical issue, Verstappen managed to resist Vettel, but had no answer for the pace of Leclerc’s Ferrari, who looked most likely to trouble Hamilton’s lead.
With little to play for in terms of potential position changes in the championship standings at the Yas Marina Circuit, the battle for sixth in the championship proved to be the closest fight. Heading into the race, Albon trailed McLaren’s Carlos Sainz and Toro Rosso’s Gasly by 11 points, and on the road Sainz trailed Albon by around five seconds at the 10-lap mark with DRS still unavailable for the drivers.
Ferrari pitted both cars on lap 13, with Vettel being compromised by a slow stop, the net result promoting Verstappen to second and Albon up into third, and it was Albon who pitted first out of the Honda-powered Red Bull cars for hard tyres one lap later, rejoining behind Vettel.
Verstappen and Hamilton elected to stay out, both seemingly enjoying a decent return from their soft tyres and by lap 15 the Mercedes driver’s lead amounted to 10 seconds with Leclerc, who had stopped for fresh rubber in third, circulating around seven seconds behind Verstappen.
DRS finally became available for the drivers on lap 19 and Albon immediately benefitted, hassling the Ferrari of Vettel in the battle for fifth place – the Thai-British driver realistically needing a fourth-place finish to have any chance of taking sixth in the driver’s championship from Sainz and Gasly.
Verstappen made his first pit stop on lap 26, dropping from second to third behind Leclerc, with Hamilton following suit one lap later. In the battle for second, Hamilton rejoined with a 10-second lead over Leclerc with Verstappen just three seconds in arrears to second-place man Leclerc.
On lap 32 Verstappen combined DRS, fresher tyres and Honda power to pull off a brilliant move on Leclerc not once but twice – firstly making a great opportunistic move under braking and then brilliantly defending from the French driver one corner later to consolidate his second place as darkness fell on the Yas Marina.
Five laps later, Albon’s fifth place came under threat from a hard-charging Bottas – the Mercedes driver had worked his way up from the back of the grid to sixth place and was within DRS range of the rookie. Leclerc pitted for soft tyres with 16 laps remaining to cover any potential challenge from Bottas as the Finnish driver made his way past Albon.
The final few laps saw Bottas closing in on Leclerc’s third place and Vettel challenge Albon for fifth. Vettel made his way past Albon on the penultimate lap, despite some aggressive defensive driving from the Red Bull man, but Bottas couldn't find his way around Leclerc, settling for fourth at the flag from 20th on the grid.
It was the 2019 world champion Hamilton that claimed his 11th victory of the year followed home by Verstappen, who finished the season third place in the driver's standings.
Racing under investigation due to discrepancies over the amount of fuel in his Ferrari, Leclerc rounded out the podium in third, with Albon ending a superb maiden season as an F1 driver by taking a solid sixth as he looks forward to 2020 as a full-time Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver.
In the battle for sixth place in the championship Sainz managed to finish 10th to take one point. With Gasly coming home last after early race problems, the Spaniard ended the season one point ahead of the Toro Rosso driver, with Albon finishing the year just three points behind in eighth ahead of Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo.
