Kimi Raikkonen has registered his maiden comeback victory with an opportunistic win in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. It’s the first win of the year for Lotus, their first since the 1987 Detroit GP. Kimi, who entertained us at home with his impatient radio banter, becomes the eighth race winner of the year on the way to collecting his 19th race win.
Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) did everything right, kept his nose clean and pocketed the 18 points for second place. Indeed, he made a late race charge and but for a hundreth of a second or so denying him access to the DRS in the last couple of laps we might have had a different winner tonight.
Somehow, Sebastian Vettel finds himself in third place, able to minimise the damage to his championship lead after starting from pit lane. It’s a remarkable result really, when you consider he had to pit for a new front wing after damaging it while overtaking slower cars early in proceedings. Things just went right for Vettel, with three Safety Car periods all working to his advantage.
You have to feel for Lewis Hamilton, who made a clean start from pole position and established a comfortable lead. That lead was manitained after a Safety Car restart following a spectacular crash between Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) and Narain Karthikeyan (HRT). But Hamilton’s McLaren could only last 19 laps, an electrical glitch forced him into retirement on lap 20.
It was a dirty day for Mark Webber. As is often the case he got a poor start and lost three places on the first lap. Later in the race he went for two separate ambitious overtaking moves, first on Maldonado, then on Felipe Massa. Contact was made both times. The race stewards judged both as racing incidents and Mark was free to race on. Now in the mid-pack Webber was stuck behind a train of Paul Di Resta (Force India), Sergio Perez (Sauber) and Romain Grosjean (Lotus). Eventually it all ended in tears when Perez tried to pass Di Resta setting off a chain of events that ended up with an innocent Webber clipping Grosjean sending both cars out of the race.
Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) had a better day for the Aussies, hanging on by six tenths from Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) to claim the final championship point on offer for P10. Ricciardo’s teammate Jean-Eric Vergne finished around 7.5 seconds behind in P12.
So there you have it, tonight’s was a race that had everything. In the end we welcomed a new winner and Red Bull need one more race, at least, to secure their third consecutive constructors’ championship.
We head off to Austin, Texas in a couple of weeks and a horrendous 4am 6am race start (AEDST). However, after tonight’s race it will be compulsory viewing.
2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix final placings
- Kimi Räikkönen (Lotus) – 25pts
- Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) +0.8 secs – 18pts
- Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) +4.1 secs – 15pts
- Jenson Button (McLaren) +7.7 secs – 12pts
- Pastor Maldonado (Williams) +13.0 secs – 10pts
- Kamui Kobayashi (Sauber) +20.0 secs – 8pts
- Felipe Massa (Ferrari) +22.8 secs – 6pts
- Bruno Senna (Williams) +23.5 secs – 4pts
- Paul di Resta (Force India) +24.1 secs – 2pts
- Daniel Ricciardo (Toro Rosso) +27.4 secs – 1pt
- Michael Schumacher (Mercedes) +28.0 secs
- Jean-Eric Vergne (Toro Rosso) +34.9 secs
- Heikki Kovalainen (Caterham) +47.7 secs
- Timo Glock (Marussia) +56.4 secs
- Sergio Perez (Sauber) +56.7 secs
- Vitaly Petrov (Caterham) +64.5 secs
- Pedro de la Rosa (HRT) +71.7 secs
Retired/not classified
Charles Pic (Marussia) +14 Laps
Romain Grosjean (Lotus) +17 Laps
Mark Webber (Red Bull) +17 Laps
Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) +36 Laps
Narain Karthikeyan (HRT) +48 Laps
Nico Rosberg (Mercedes AMG) +48 Laps
Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) – Lap 1
Fastest lap: Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull), 1:43.964 – Lap 54
2012 World Championship top 10 (Drivers) – Round 18
- Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull) – 255
- Fernando Alonso (Ferrari) – 245
- Kimi Räikkönen (Lotus) – 198
- Mark Webber (Red Bull) – 167
- Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) – 165
- Jenson Button (McLaren) – 153
- Felipe Massa (Ferrari) – 95
- Nico Rosberg (Mercedes AMG) – 93
- Romain Grosjean (Lotus) – 90
- Sergio Perez (Sauber) – 66
2012 World Championship (Constructors) – Round 18
- Red Bull Racing-Renault – 422
- Ferrari – 340
- McLaren-Mercedes – 318
- Lotus-Renault – 288
- Mercedes AMG – 136
- Sauber-Ferrari – 116
- Force India-Mercedes – 95
- Williams-Renault – 73
- STR-Ferrari – 22
4 replies on “Kimi Raikkonen wins 2012 Abu Dhabi GP”
Kimi did it beautifully. He pulled out that lead after the final safety car with some spectacular laps. After that he was just cruising, and showed Fernando that he could match Alonso when he wanted to towards the last lap or two. Kimi has never been one who is interested in winning by a huge margin so he was just doing what he needed to. Well deserved!
4am start for Austin? I thought it was 6am?
The race last night had everything, Vettel coming through the pack, Kimi taking it to Alonso and Alonso himself balancing attack vs. keeping his championship chances well in hand. The accident between Nico and the HRT of Karthakin was very scary, the HRT started limping and Nico didn’t have enough time to react and launched over the top of the HRT.
All that and poor WEB getting no respect by the drivers around him, I know some people were saying he wasn’t allowing enough room, however, if Webber was side by side with Alonso or Kimi or Vettel, there would have been enough respect from both sides.
@shauno Yep, you’re right it’s a 6am start in Austin. I should have referred to my own guide, haha -> http://ausm.tv/f1guide2012
@Bavarian That’s probably a fair point about Webber and Alonso/Kimi etc. That said, he should have known better than to try an outside move on Maldonado. It was never going to work.