\nABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 A year after one of the most controversial finishes in the history of Formula One, Sunday\u2019s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was anything but.
\nMax Verstappen, as usual this season, was far ahead of the rest on his way to a record-extending 15th win of the season.
\n\u201cIncredible to win again here, 15th win of the season is unbelievable,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cIt\u2019s been really enjoyable to work with the whole team and to be able to achieve something like this this year.\u201d
\nAt the track where he beat Lewis Hamilton last year \u2014 after a restart call that is still hotly disputed to this day \u2014Verstappen held off his teammate Sergio Perez at the start and didn\u2019t face a serious challenge after that in the season-ending race. Instead, much of the attention was on retiring four-time champion Sebastian Vettel battling in the midfield pack in his final race, while a hydraulic problem ended Lewis Hamilton\u2019s race for Mercedes as the seven-time champion finished an F1 season without a win for the first time in his career.
\nThere was potential for a fight for second place on track and in the championship standings, but little real drama.
\nPerez and Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc came into the race equal on points, just like Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton did last year. Leclerc got past Perez by opting for one less pit stop and managed his old tires so that Perez couldn\u2019t get close enough to try an overtake.
\nThat thwarted Red Bull\u2019s bid to have its drivers place first and second, as Leclerc finished three points ahead of Perez in the standings. It meant Verstappen\u2019s refusal to yield sixth place to his teammate at the last race in Brazil \u2014 which left Red Bull facing questions over an apparent rift in the team and was followed by a wave of abusive comments on social media aimed at Verstappen and his family \u2014 turned out not to be decisive at the end of the season.
\n\u201cI knew the only possibility to beat Checo (Perez) today was with a different strategy and playing with the tire management, which we did really well today,\u201d Leclerc said. \u201cI really hope next year we can do a step forward to fight for the championship.\u201d
\nLeclerc and Ferrari seemed able to challenge Verstappen for the title at the start of the season, but Red Bull improved its car performance advantage through the season. Errors on track from Leclerc and in Ferrari\u2019s race strategy held them back too.
\nCarlos Sainz was fourth in the other Ferrari, while George Russell was fifth despite a five-second penalty when the Mercedes team released him from a pit stop into the path of another car. Lando Norris was sixth for McLaren, ahead of Alpine\u2019s Esteban Ocon, Aston Martin\u2019s Lance Stroll and Norris\u2019 teammate Daniel Ricciardo, who is without a race contract for 2023 and is likely to be Red Bull\u2019s reserve driver next year.
\nVettel placed 10th for Aston Martin as he retires from F1 after 16 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 A year after one of the most controversial finishes in the history of Formula One, Sunday\u2019s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was anything but. Max Verstappen, as usual this season, was far ahead of the rest on his way to a record-extending 15th win of the season. \u201cIncredible to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-205315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}