Vettel Crowned F1 Champion in Abu Dhabi

The final setting for the 2010 season could not have been more spectacular. As the only twilight race on the calendar, the Yas Marina circuit was lit up for a glamorous and thrilling occasion as the championship was still undecided. Never before had a season ended with four drivers still in contention and few were keen to put money on any one as a clear favourite. Each contender, Germany’s Sebastian Vettel, Spain’s Fernando Alonso, the UK’s Lewis Hamilton and Australia’s Mark Webber were to find the race pan out for them in very different ways.
It was Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel who triumphed in the end to become the youngest champion in Formula One history, clinching the title when he won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday and Fernando Alonso faltered in the last race of the season.
The 23 year old Red Bull driver started from the pole trailing Alonso by 15 points in the standings. While Vettel had a fairly trouble free race, Alonso finished seventh after Ferrari made an ill advised decision to pit early and the Spaniard got stuck behind Nico Rosberg and Vitaly Petrov for nearly 40 laps.“It has been an incredible journey; to lead the championship after the last race is unbelievable,” Vettel said. “It’s been extremely intense and a tough season mentally.”
The German is six months younger than Lewis Hamilton was when he won the title in 2008. Vettel’s championship caps a season in which Red Bull regularly dominated the field in qualifying but often failed to convert its unrivalled speed into race victories because of reliability problems and driver errors.
Alonso, who started third on the grid, ended up four points behind Vettel in the final standings. “It was a tough race; a difficult race,” Alonso said. “We lost one position in the start and (in) the first safety car period Petrov and Rosberg came in.”
Vettel didn’t know the situation behind him during the last 10 laps due to a problem with the race radio and had a few nervous moments at the end waiting to see whether Alonso could rise to fourth place on the last lap and earn enough points to take the title.
The celebrations finally started when he received the message he was hoping for. “Weltmeister!” Vettel’s team screamed over the car radio after Rosberg crossed in fourth place, using the German word for world champion.“Unbelievable! Thank you,” Vettel replied in a strained voice, barely able to speak as Red Bull engineers and crewmembers threw themselves into
each other’s arms.
Alonso could not hide his disappointment, shaking his fist angrily as he pulled up alongside Petrov when they glided over the line.
“Next year, we’ll try again,” the Spaniard said. Red Bull’s Mark Webber of Australia came in behind Alonso and finished third overall, 14 points behind Vettel.
Hamilton beat defending champion Jenson Button to give McLaren second and third place in the race. For the first time in F1 history, four drivers were in contention for the title heading into the last GP, with Hamilton finishing 16 points behind Vettel; fourth
overall.
“We’ve seen an incredibly tight championship; I don’t know how many times we’ve had a different leader,” Vettel said. “In the beginning we thought Ferrari’s dropping back but they fought back very hard. All of us can write a book about where we could
have finished higher in races.” Vettel’s title hopes appeared to be slipping away when he finished out of the points at the rainy Korean Grand Prix and fell 25 points behind Alonso with two races left. Vettel had started from the pole at Yeongam and was poised for victory before his engine blew with nine laps to go, allowing Alonso to win the race and letting Hamilton back into the title hunt. Vettel knew he could not afford to panic. “You can’t change what happened,” he said. “But you can still change what will happen.” Ferrari ultimately paid the price for its cautious tactics on Sunday.

The decision was clearly to tag Webber, who was eight points behind Alonso going into the race, as the main threat rather than Vettel because a victory for the German was irrelevant so long as Alonso finished at least fourth. But Alonso was overtaken by Button at the start and then pitted early on lap 16, allowing Rosberg and Petrov to stay ahead of him. Webber went in for a tyre change on the 12th lap in what looked like a precautionary measure after he brushed a crash barrier and that prompted Ferrari into a panicky move, sending in Alonso for a tyre change shortly after.
“Webber pitted and we tried to cover for him and when you cover for him you need to give way to others,” Alonso said. “It was to choose between Vettel and Webber and Petrov or Rosberg. This is a sport. This is motor racing. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.”

Five laps later, anxiety was creeping in as Ferrari officials told Alonso over the race radio that it was critical that he pass Petrov. Alonso nearly clipped the Russian rookie as he tried to get past on lap 24. Seven time champion Michael Schumacher had a
lucky escape when he escaped unhurt from a scary accident on the first lap. The German’s car was nudged by his Mercedes
team-mate Rosberg. As he tried to manoeuvre it back around, Italian driver Vitantonio Liuzzi could not get his Force India car out of the way and rolled over Schumacher’s front, narrowly missing his head. Both racers climbed out unscathed.

“I couldn’t move anywhere as there were cars all around me and then when the smoke cleared I saw Michael the wrong way round,” Liuzzi said. “I couldn’t do anything but thankfully we were both OK.”
41-year-old Schumacher finished without a podium place in his comeback season.

Vettel in Berlin and at the Race of Champions in Dusseldorf

Tens of thousands of Berliners lined the street in front of the Brandenburg Gate on Saturday, 27th November to watch newly crowned Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel drive his championship winning Red
Bull racing car on a lap of honour. The 23 year old German who became the youngest world champion in the history of the sport, put his RB6 car through its paces on the 17th June Street for his fans in freezing temperatures and snowy conditions. “This is something really special. You don’t get this type of opportunity very often in life,” said Vettel, adding that he was taking it easy on the 467 metre stretch of road.
“It’s a sacred piece of road so we have to be careful.” Vettel heads straight to Dusseldorf from Berlin to participate in the Race of Champions, which pits the best Formula One, World Rally Championship, NASCAR, sports cars and touring cars drivers against each other in identical cars, ranging from dune buggies to super sports cars.                                                                            Vettel’s previous performances in the Race of Champions have been impressive, winning the last three Nations Cup events with
Michael Schumacher and they are now hoping to make it four in a row.

Vettel was the youngest of 16 participants in Dusseldorf, the oldest was four times Formula One world champion Alain Prost, who is 55. After being held in the Stade de France near Paris for three years, the Race of Champions moved to Wembley Stadium for two years. Last year it was held in the Birds Nest in Beijing. Filipe Albuquerque delivered a thrilling performance to eclipse 15 superstars of motorsport and win The Race of Champions at his first attempt on an exciting afternoon in Düsseldorf.

In front of a packed ESPRIT arena the Portuguese driver beat World Rally champion Sébastien Loeb 2-1 in the best of three Grand Finals on the specially constructed parallel track, to earn the title of Champion of Champions. Following Team Germany’s win last
night in the ROC Nations Cup, The Race of Champions pitted 16 of the biggest names in motorsport against each other in head to head combat in a variety of different cars.

ROC South Europe winner Albuquerque’s route to the final took him past Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel in a very tight semi final following his quarter final triumph against fellow Portuguese driver Alvaro Parente. Loeb reached the Grand Final courtesy of a quarter final win over eight time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen, followed by victory against would touring
car star Andy Priaulx in the powerful Audi R8 LMS. In another quarter final, an epic clash saw home favourites and F1 rivals, Vettel and Schumacher, clash in KTM X-Bows. Victory went to the younger man by just over half a second. Priaulx beat Bertrand
Baguette in the other last eight tie. The final group of the first round featured an incredible combined 11 F1 world champions and
Schumacher beat Alain Prost by just over a second in a closely fought contest in the ROC car. Schumacher won all three first round races with Parente going through as runner up. Current British touring car number one Jason Plato missed out, as did Prost, who spun out of his last race in the KTM X-Bow.
A total of 64,052 fans attended The Race of Champions during the course of the weekend of 27th and 28th November.