F1 Abu Dhabi GP Live Commentary and Updates - race day
By: Jake Boxall-Legge, Haydn Cobb, Stefan Mackley
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To everyone who followed us this year - thank you so much for joining us, we really hope you've enjoyed our updates. Have a wonderful Christmas, if you celebrate, and we'll see you next year. Good afternoon, good evening and goodnight!
Verstappen wins title by beating Hamilton in controversial last-lap duel
And here's the report - and that's it for 2021! https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/f1-abu-dhabi-gp-verstappen-defeats-hamilton-to-win-title-in-controversial-last-lap-duel/6877931/
Blimey O'Riley, I think I've got my breath back now - that was something else. I think we're in for a very busy evening tonight - report coming your way very shortly!
Hamilton: "Firstly, a big congratulations to Max and his team. I think we did an amazing job this year. It's been the most difficult of seasons. We gave it everything, and we never gave up."
Sainz: "I was very strong today. With the safety car at the end, nerves were high, but I kept it together."
Verstappen "It's unbelievable. All race, I kept fighting and then I had that opportunity on the final lap. Finally, a bit of luck for me. I want to say thank you to Checo too, he's the best team-mate."
Carlos Sainz Jr finished third - we missed that among all the fun. Tsunoda and Gasly were fourth and fifth, with Bottas, Norris, Alonso, Ocon and Leclerc completing the top 10.
Lapped cars won't be allowed to overtake - so we should get a lap of racing - but Verstappen will have to fight through.
Red Bull is retiring Perez. That's it for the second Red Bull driver - and all but cements the constructors' title for Mercedes.
The call for a safety car simply had to come with Latifi's car facing nose first to the wall on the track and unable to move. A small brake fire briefly sparked up in Latifi's front-left to make matters worse but it is quickly under control.
Mercedes has decided not to pit Hamilton this time around - and it looked as though they were going to pit, but they won't. "We would have lost track position" says Hamilton's race engineer.
Latifi was racing Schumacher, going wheel to wheel through Turn 9 and goes wide and off track. It looks like with dirty tyres the Williams driver loses grip through Turn 14 and spins into the wall.
Norris, with his fresh tyres, gets ahead of Alonso to take eighth place. Small comfort having been running in fifth and he now has a 11.5s gap to bridge to catch Gasly.
And on lap 51, Hamilton's now opened the gap by a tenth as Verstappen hits the traffic - bolstered by an extra car after Norris' stop.
That pitstop has put Norris slap bang in the middle of the Alonso-Ocon-Ricciardo-Leclerc battle. Norris gets by Ocon to take ninth place on the exit of Turn 5.
Norris pits while defending in fifth from Bottas and it sounds like it was a slow puncture for the McLaren driver. Cruel luck for the Brit.
Verstappen took a second out of Hamilton on lap 47, but there was the traffic ahead. Alonso moves over, freeing up Hamilton.
"It says I have seven laps?" Hamilton asks. "Ignore the dash," comes the reply - there's more than that remaining.
Verstappen's managing to take 0.2s out of Hamilton per lap at this point, which may be more as Hamilton comes up to deal with traffic.
Traffic coming up for Hamilton - the quartet of Leclerc, Ricciardo, Ocon and Alonso are battling ahead.
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