Photograph: PA Wire/PAĪ late crash for Williams’s Nicholas Latifi brought the safety car out on lap 53, with five to go. This was a conflict fought on many fronts, a maelstrom with the two drivers locked in a battle of wills at its heart, growing increasingly fractious and ending on a similarly discordant note in Abu Dhabi.įireworks light up the sky behind Max Verstappen’s car after his dramatic Abu Dhabi GP victory.
Their relationship, initially one of mutual respect, has deteriorated as the intensity has grown and the accusations between teams have flown. His victory was made all the more remarkable such has been the level of competition from Hamilton who was at the top of his game. His appetite to race, to compete, is fierce. He was unbowed and entirely unintimidated going up against the seven-times champion Hamilton, supremely confident in his own ability to do so. This year he has taken 10 wins, delivering some relentlessly confident and controlled drives for some dominant victories. He was the youngest driver in the history of the sport on his debut aged 17 in 2015, and has the potential to go on and win many more.Ī more mature, complete driver now, Verstappen’s youthful excesses have been largely curbed and his judgement is more circumspect although he remains an aggressively confrontational driver, uncompromising with his elbows as Hamilton discovered this season. He can be rightly proud in winning it although he is still only 24 and becomes the first Dutchman to have won the F1 world championship. Photograph: Mario Renzi/Formula 1/Getty Imagesįor Verstappen should he maintain his grip on the trophy, this was the culmination of a lifelong dream, achieved in the white heat of competition against the best driver of this generation in what has been a superb season. Max Verstappen is congratulated by Lewis Hamilton after the race’s dramatic finale.
The stewards rejected the protests but more wrangling may lie ahead with Mercedes having lodged an intention to appeal against the decision, and with the right to take their case to the court of arbitration for sport.Īs the fireworks went off at Yas Marina, Verstappen celebrated with tears in his eyes while a similarly emotional Hamilton held his obvious disappointment in check but having been consoled by his father Anthony, offered sportsmanlike congratulations to his rival. Inevitably it ended in protests to the stewards grinding on long after the trophies had been awarded and the fans departed. In a season already marked by drama this finale simply could not have been scripted nor will there be consensus on how it played out. His reaction and that of his Red Bull team was one of unbridled joy while Hamilton and Mercedes were left disconsolate and convinced the win that had been in their hands had been unfairly snatched from their grasp, leaving the greatest prize in motor racing potentially in the laps of the lawyers.
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