Race
Abu Dhabi failed to develop into anything other than a formulaic Sebastian Vettel win as he seized first place at turn one and drove away with untouchable pace to win by over 30 seconds. Webber had a harder fight to take second place but ultimately it all played out with strategy as the tyres suffered much less wear than they did in India a week ago. Red Bull drove to their 100th podium finish ahead of Rosberg's Mercedes and a speedy Grosjean who at one point threatened the podium. There was limited action throughout the field at any point of the race, with little to no overtaking outside the two huge DRS zones, with only one excellent pass by Massa on Hamilton. Steward's calls went somewhat questionable as drivers ran off the track yet weren't penalised despite gaining advantages, and all in all contributed to another boring Abu Dhabi outing for Formula 1. The Front Runners
Vettel raced off to put any hope of a challenge for victory to bed from the get-go, with ridiculously high pace and good tyre wear that saw him run long stints. Webber had a tougher time of things, with Rosberg getting past into turn one and then having to save the tyres, before a good solid overtake got him back into second place later in the race to complete another Red Bull 1-2. Mercedes took a good result for the constructors as Rosberg took the final podium spot, though he struggled on the medium tyre in the middle stint of the race. Disappointed not to challenge Red Bull, he was still happy with the result for the title race. Hamilton had a much harder day as he just couldn't get things together after the car was hurriedly repaired ahead of the race following the wishbone break in qualifying. He took seventh and six points but was hoping for more. Overall Mercedes took 21 points to Ferrari's 14, extending their lead over them to 11 points. Lotus had a contrasting afternoon as Grosjean hooked up a good race to finish just behind Rosberg in fourth place, with pace that looked like it might leapfrog him onto the podium at one point, maybe even second. He suffered in the middle stint fighting with Sutil, unable to get ahead and stay there, costing him the podium as he lost time. Raikkonen's race ended before it began as, starting from the back, he tangled with the Caterham's in turn one and punted into Van der Garde, breaking his right front track rod end, putting him immediately out of the race as the sole retirement. Ferrari had a better weekend than India as Alonso secured fifth place from outside the top ten, battling past Hamilton and Di Resta in the late stages with an aggressive run on option tyres following a long middle stint, barging Vergne aside on his way out of the pits that saw an investigation but no penalty. Alonso felt the top four were out of reach due to the traffic problems and that they had to do better in the final two races if they hoped to fight Mercedes for second in the constructor's title. Massa looked strong early in the race, ahead of his teammate, but then ran a shorter middle stint and had a problem with his second stop, dropping him behind Hamilton. He was closing hard on Lewis in the final stages but ran out of laps, ending up eighth and saying the prime tyre was the wrong choice, somewhat disappointing after his pace and aggressive overtake of Hamilton earlier in the race. Force India had a good weekend, another double points finish as Di Resta held on with a one-stop strategy to take sixth place, holding off Hamilton to the flag for eight points. Sutil, after starting low down the grid, made it into tenth place for a single point on a one-stop strategy, only losing ninth place on the last lap to Perez due to his worn out soft tyres. All in all another successful weekend for the team. McLaren had another mixed race as Perez scraped into ninth place as he struggled with rear tyre degradation and traction, while Button finished outside the points again in P12 following another first lap incident, thumping the rear of Paul di Resta and breaking his front wing. After that he ran essentially a one-stop strategy and had good pace, but was too far out of touch to make the points by the end.