Here is a bit of a recap of the last F1 race of the season. ..
This weekend F1 went to Abu Dhabi for the inaugural GP at the Yas Marina Circuit. Before I get into the race, a bit about Yas Marina. It is an incredible display of extravagance and opulence. The track is built on an island which is the beginning of a $1 trillion development project and centered around the 5 star Yas Marina Hotel, the first hotel in the world to actually span a race track. The hotel is essentially covered by a massive grid shell made up of more than 5300 glass panels that are equipped with LED technology, because really, if you have something that immense it is so much better if you can display light shows that can be seen for miles on it.
Yes, this is where your gas dollars have gone.
The Island also features a Ferrari theme park, Warner Brothers Theme Park, and Water Park. The track is surrounded by a marina which was filled with yachts throughtout the weekend giving it a Monaco-esque appearance, undoubtedly what they were going for.
The pit lane exit is actually a tunnel that goes under the track and pops back up, the effect being that cars on the track don’t see the cars entering from pit lane until the very last minute. It was decently exciting to watch due to the fact that the pit land speed limit ended at the beginning of the tunnel encouraging the drivers to gun it up through the tunnel and leading to a few near misses with the tunnel walls.
The new location was by far the most exciting part of this whole GP weekend, but I guess I should talk a bit about the actual race.
F1 saw its first day to night race, an interesting concept, but overall not that big a deal. Lewis Hamilton started on the pole with Sebastian Vettel starting next to him in 2nd place. Hamilton had a great start and Vettel seemed just a smidge slow to get off the grid. Sadly for Dr. G, Hamilton had to retire from the race with a brake problem, which was unfortunate because he looked ready to dominate the race. After Hamilton’s retirement, Vettel assumed the race lead and had no further competition. The race for 2nd was the most interesting of the day with Jenson Button challenging Mark Webber right until the very end for that 2nd spot. Webber and his dreamy looks held off Button, but if Button had one more lap it is likely that he would have made it past Webber. Not that Button should be worried about it since he clinched his World Championship title in the previous race. The fact that both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ World Championships were decided in the previous race took a lot of the excitement out of the race.
Obligatory Webber picture: (L to R) Webber, Christian Horner - Red Bull Racing Team Principal, Vettel, and Button
Rookie Kamui Kobayashi again gave Button a bit of trouble and demonstrated some pretty gutsy driving while doing so, but Button’s battle with the rookie ended once Kobayashi had to refuel.
Other than Hamilton only one other driver failed to finish the race. Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso went to the wrong pit and had to go back on track without getting additional fuel. F1 teams time pit stops to the absolute limit, and thus ran out of fuel before he could come back around. Algueruari’s actions are slightly defendable because he drives for Red Bull’s second team (Toro Rosso? Get it?), so and the cars and crew uniforms of both Red Bull teams look quite similar and the pits were next to each other. That being said, pretty embarrassing. Good thing his team is mediocre at best and he had no chance of getting on the podium.
All in all a fairly mundane race and a very anticlimatic end to the F1 season. Now that the season is over there will be no weekly recaps, but don’t fret, there will be occasional commentary of off season driver moves, rule changes, and any other moderately noteworthy F1 news.
Look for Lewis Hamilton to dominate in 2010.
