UNITED ARAB EMIRATES GRAND PRIX, QUALIFICATION AND RACE

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:12:06:22:50:22 by sessions.

Bring it on, this is going to be a cracker of a final race! I sense some real drama building here, & not just between the leading champoinship contenders.

Its the last race of the season so ALL the drivers will have a point to prove & won't be thinking about conserving their cars etc. + many now know they are not going to change their position in the WDC so they will just be racing for the pure sake of it. Sweet!

Go Merc, stick it to Mclaren for the final race of the season!

DUT,

You're right, this is it. Pure racing. Everyone has to go for the gusto. Guys who are seeking 2011 seats and WDC contenders can't hedge in this race.
I'm sure Alonso wants an 8 point margin to rid himself of the 7 point edge he received through team orders.
Could be some dramatic results from those who will refuse to lend their driving to caution in order to finish.
Webber has to put his foot in it and get clear of trouble.
Easier said than done with Vettel and Hamilton in the picture.
Alonso won't go down without a fight.
It should prove to be a good one, Enjoy !

sessions



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:11:09:15:50:27 by sessions.

What a season it has been!!! Dont know how many retuned engines Alonso has used in these 3-4 last races but something fishy has been going on in the engine department.

Webbos engine was failing at Brasil, is he using the same at Abu???

Well anyways Hammi and Vettel needs others misfortune big time.

I bet it goes to the last lap.

It will be really exciting that's for sure.

Autosport:

Mercedes aims to pounce in Abu Dhabi

By Matt Beer Wednesday, November 10th 2010, 10:11 GMT


Mercedes motorsport boss Norbert Haug says the team's aim for Abu Dhabi this weekend is to be in the 'best of the rest' position and ready to pounce if any of the leading contenders has a problem.

Although Mercedes has turned most of its attention to its 2011 car, the team has also made a step up in performance with this year's machine in recent races, and has consistently been the fourth-fastest team behind the title combatants in recent races.

"Our team will not be taking anything for granted and our target is to achieve the best possible result with our current technical package," said Haug.

"As in recent races, we want to be right there if a driver in one of the currently faster cars should have a problem.

"It would be a nice reward for the team to conclude this very long and tough season, which saw everyone give their all, with a reasonable result."

Nico Rosberg agreed that while Mercedes was not really concentrating on 2010 results anymore, a strong finish to the year would be a good launch into what it will hopes be a far more competitive 2011 season.

"It was good to be back in the points in Brazil last Sunday and we hope to finish the season with another good result here before looking ahead to next season which will definitely be stronger for us," he said.
---------------

Crazy as it sounds we may see light rain during qualifying according to area weather reports. I hope not ! The last three races have offered twists to the end of the season but I'd like to see the four combatants duke it out on dry track, starting in positions where they normally start from without surprises from cars and drivers who act as moving chicanes until they've finally slipped out of contention.
This one is up to Webber, Alonso, Vettel, and Hamilton to finish IMHO.
May the man who doesn't falter, be the winner.

sessions

Any possible (very small chance) rain that we'll get is going to be tomorrow.

Autosport:

Shumacher stirred by title fight

[www.autosport.com]

+ Rosberg: Mercedes reliant on F-duck

[www.autosport.com]

FP1

Car Driver Car Best lap Gap Lap At time Laps
1 5 Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1’42.760 16 71 18
2 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1’43.369 0.609 11 85 16
3 1 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1’43.785 1.025 14 66 19
4 6 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1’43.840 1.080 9 87 19
5 11 Robert Kubica Renault 1’44.080 1.320 10 70 19
6 8 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1’44.121 1.361 9 92 17
7 3 Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1’44.199 1.439 13 89 19
8 23 Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1’44.604 1.844 12 67 18
9 4 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1’44.718 1.958 7 64 19
10 22 Nick Heidfeld Sauber-Ferrari 1’44.737 1.977 10 80 19
11 7 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1’45.160 2.400 7 68 18
12 12 Vitaly Petrov Renault 1’45.445 2.685 12 85 21
13 9 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1’45.474 2.714 12 79 14
14 14 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1’45.552 2.792 8 83 20
15 15 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1’45.585 2.825 13 89 14
16 17 Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1’46.003 3.243 9 69 20
17 10 Nico Hülkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1’46.644 3.884 17 67 19
18 16 Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1’47.105 4.345 9 75 22
19 24 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1’48.450 5.690 13 67 19
20 18 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1’48.472 5.712 8 86 17
21 25 Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1’49.375 6.615 8 65 13
22 21 Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 1’49.590 6.830 12 85 18
23 20 Christian Klien HRT-Cosworth 1’50.274 7.514 12 90 17
24 19 Fairuz Fauzy Lotus-Cosworth 1’51.705 8.945 6 73 18

As we come to the end of the season, lets not forget the forum during the winter. And do you think we could, just for once avoid insulting that muppet schumacher in ths thread.

Also, can I say Merry Christmas to all my friends in the Mercedes Forum.

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Well done Lewis. New driver, new era.

I don't like the way how we always are in the best position after FP1 and then keep dropping back a little with each practice. Though Schumacher set his best time early on in FP2, so I'm positive there was more in the car than what we saw.

It's Friday lots of setting up. We'll see tomorrow if we move up.

Practice 2

LH--140.888
SV--141.145
FA--141.314
MW--141.315
RK--141.576
FM--141.583
VP--142.096
JB--142.132
VL--142.203
NR--142.222
MS--142.246



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 2010:11:12:18:57:51 by sessions.

Spectacular Q1 for Nico. It seems we can easily grab Q3 with both drivers today...

z i o . k e n

Great drive Nico!. let's see if we can even jump on first row now.

z i o . k e n

ehm... maybe next year.

z i o . k e n

Both drivers unhappy with results. Michael said he didn't get a good lap and Nico switched to the super-softs and said he couldn't get them to work.
Oh well, hopefully our race craft will bring use better results.

As far as the WDC goes it looks like Vettel or Alonso, but it only takes a slight screw up and the dream can go away.
Should be exciting.

sessions

good job by nico. and now onto the boring bit, the off season.

regards tt

Nico what a race! Disappointing we could'nt see Schumi's race, after last races showed is now matching Nico's standards. I am looking forward for next season, hopefully Ross is preparing something special for us. Congratulation to Vettel.

z i o . k e n

Can't believe Schumacher's bad luck and Nico's good luck this season.
Disappointing. I would have liked to see Schumacher luck himself into a high position at least once during the season like Rosberg today and many times before. Smart strategy by Mercedes, but lucky nonetheless.

once is luck, twice, maybe, but so many times? if he is that lucky, he better becomes mercedes' lucky charm.

regards tt

Quote:

FormulaFan
Can't believe Schumacher's bad luck and Nico's good luck this season.
Disappointing. I would have liked to see Schumacher luck himself into a high position at least once during the season like Rosberg today and many times before. Smart strategy by Mercedes, but lucky nonetheless.

Don't be silly. MS was really lucky. Nico almost killed his team mate

The Force India missed his head by inches. We could have been mourning his loss had it not been for a few inches

Nice race for Nico!!

AL BANCO SANTANDEr FIARrari... KARMA is a biatch!!!
What a race!!!!

You just cant buy everything.
It was brilliant that Santander couldnt overtake Petrovs Renault, just brilliant. What a true comedy!!

CONGRATS TO VETTEL but watch out MGP W02 will destroy you 2011!!!

JIIHAAA!!!!

If you look more closely at the footage, you will see that in reality Nico didn't touch MSC's car, despite what Brundle said. MSC spun it all by himself, getting on the gas too early on cold tyres. So to follow your logic, MSC almost killed himself. If Nico had spun him, old gobshite wouldn't have been walking down the pit lane laughing like he didn't care, he would have been furious, and jumped in front of the nearest TV crew to tell the world it wasn't his fault.

However, that was a fantastic move by Nico, putting his car on the outside for the inside of the next corner, and frightening MSC into his own spin. Really, that was a pathetic end to a pathetic year by schumacher.

Nico out qualified and outraced him all year. Well done Nico.

Quote:

In The Pits
If you look more closely at the footage, you will see that in reality Nico didn't touch MSC's car, despite what Brundle said. MSC spun it all by himself, getting on the gas too early on cold tyres. So to follow your logic, MSC almost killed himself. If Nico had spun him, old gobshite wouldn't have been walking down the pit lane laughing like he didn't care, he would have been furious, and jumped in front of the nearest TV crew to tell the world it wasn't his fault.
However, that was a fantastic move by Nico, putting his car on the outside for the inside of the next corner, and frightening MSC into his own spin. Really, that was a pathetic end to a pathetic year by schumacher.

Nico out qualified and outraced him all year. Well done Nico.

Agree totally about Nico not actually touching Schu at all & Schu spinning by himself(as schu has admitted openly)..

Don't agree about the positioning thing etc, Schu was only where he was bacuase he was attacking Barichello up the inside & Barichello moved to the inside to cover MS. MS was then left having to brake a bit extra to avoid hitting barichello, & Nico saw this happening & took a dive up the outside (which then became the inside after the chicane).

Good move by Nico but he didn't "Frighten MS out of the way" more I think MS realised Nico was there after MS was blocked by Barichello, so he moved over a bit to allow his teammate Nico some room & in the process of this ended up on some dirty track on cold tyres & had a spin.

Good on MS for not just chopping across Nico's bows, Nico barely had his nose in through the second part of the corner & I'm sure MS would have turned in on any other car out there except the second Mercedes.

All in all, a great season to watch & full congratulations to a deserving Sebestian Vettel for his 1st World Championship.

Bring on the 2011 Mercedes yeah!!!

I think I agree with you there Pits. Nico's move was well made, and schumacher had nowhere to go.

If MS did move over, it would follow his recent team player trend. Scumacher is on very thin ice indeed within the team, thats why he's suddenly, after 17 years decided to become a team player, or at least make noises like one. If he had run into Nico, it could have been the last straw for Norbert, given his disasterous year.

10/10 Nico 1/10 MS

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Well done Lewis. New driver, new era.

Was this year really disastrous ? I don't think so. In reality MS hadn't been behind the wheel of a car for years. The car was a change from the Ferrari and it took some adjusting. During the last four races things for him are improving.
It was a new team in many ways. Not a start up team, but they had their share of changes.
They finished where the car was in the pecking order of things.
Nico very nearly leaped frog Massa (2 lousy points) despite unscheduled DNF's.
All and all it would have even better if MS would have shone up sooner but it really looks as though things are on track for 2011. Hey let 2010 sink in and lets ramp up our hopes for next year.

sessions

What improvement? The results table shows the first half and the second half of the season from Silverstone onwards were almost identical in points.

Yes it was a disaster. A £30Million disaster.

Quote:

FF
Can't believe Schumacher's bad luck and Nico's good luck this season.

Not luck FF - skill, MS is a has been.

---------------------------------------------------
Well done Lewis. New driver, new era.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:11:15:17:22:07 by Herman Munster.

Quote:

FormulaFan
Can't believe Schumacher's bad luck and Nico's good luck this season.

What Like Nico's wheel coming of cos they didn't fit it properly, and like Webber crashing into him taking him out?

No, the truth is that Nico made the most of his opportunities and schumacher didn't. However painfull it is for you dear boy, maybe you need to face that fact that the schu was totally out performed by Rosberg. 142 to his 72 tells the story.

In fact if Rosberg had scored a similar number of points to schumacher we would have finished behind Renault.

Guys the cup can be half empty or half full. We didn't finish behind Renault and Schumacher seems to be finding his legs. The last race was bad luck for him, but @#$%& happens. It happened to Nico as well with the wheel nut and with Webber. Alonso encountered it yesterday too ! Man it's called racing. We are on the upswing so lets not always look for or constantly discuss the rainy cloud.

sessions

haha don't worry let em at it sessions, it will ensure there is alot of continued debate at this site over the off season. I think by now we all take some of each others comments with a grain of salt anyway :-)

Pits & Munster, you guys crack me up hahaha. Good on you both for your passion but, even if it is passionate hatred hahaha!

Can you guys do me a small favour & open up a can of your famous "Schu hatred" on Alonso for his swerving at & gesticulating to Vitali Petrov after the race too? Cmon,just give me a couple of quotable quotes, I was lauching my ar5e off watching Alonso's sense of entitlement (pardon the "title" pun), I think he actually thought Petrov should have moved over, Funny stuff!!!

MGP official:

An excellent drive by Nico Rosberg today saw him finish in fourth place at the final race of the season in Abu Dhabi. Michael Schumacher was out of the race on the first lap after spinning and subsequently being hit by another car.



A good strategy call from the team to bring Nico in under the safety car on the first lap to switch to the harder prime tyres put him in a great position on track and an assured drive from there allowed Nico to make up six places on his starting position.



MERCEDES GP PETRONAS finished the 2010 season in fourth place in the Constructors' Championship with 214 points with Nico finishing seventh place in the Drivers' Championship with 142 points and Michael finishing ninth place with 72 points.


NICO ROSBERG


"I'm very pleased with fourth place and it's the best that we could have hoped for from my grid position. Special thanks to Ross and James Vowles for a great strategy today. We had a good pace on the hard tyres, just like in qualifying, and I was able to make the most of that performance when it mattered. Thanks to everyone here at the track and back at the factory for all of their hard work this year. Although we didn't get the results that we wanted on track, I am sure that we will improve massively for next year and have more fun then. Congratulations to Sebastian today and he deserved the title. Next up, we have the test later this week which will be very important to get a headstart on adapting to the new tyres."



MICHAEL SCHUMACHER


"First of all, big congratulations to Sebastian for his great victory and taking the title today. That was extremely well done after his season was so mixed but he was able to come back strongly in the last few races. As for me, I am totally fine and was not hit by anything in the incident. I had to go to the Medical Centre just for a precautionary check. I went off the line, spun and because of the dirt there, the back of the car just came around. It's a shame obviously as I would have liked to finish the season with a more positive ending but I am already looking forward to fighting again next year. I would like to say thank you to everybody in our team for all of their hard work."



ROSS BRAWN


"That was a fantastic performance from Nico today and a perfect way to finish the season for us. As a team, we achieved the absolute maximum with the car that we have with a great call on strategy from the guys on the pit wall and a well-executed pit stop. Then it was an excellent and controlled drive from Nico who found the pace exactly when he needed it. Michael unfortunately made a mistake on the first lap and got caught out which is a shame. I'm very excited about next year with the team and drivers that we have and we will have a lot more fun competing where we want to be. Congratulations to Sebastian on his first Drivers' title today, to the Red Bull team for a great job and to Dieter Mateschitz for the vision and commitment that he has shown over the last five years."



NORBERT HAUG


"Our sincere congratulations to the new World Champion Sebastian Vettel and to Red Bull Racing for a well-deserved victory in both Championships this season. From our race today, the good news is that Michael was not hurt after his spin and Tonio was also ok after crashing into him, which was not Tonio's fault. The resultant safety car and our very smart strategy to bring Nico in for the prime tyres was crucial for the race and for Nico's well-deserved fourth place which came after a brilliant drive during which he posted the third fastest lap of the race. We have finished this long season with a good result with Nico beating two of the World Championship contenders. Thank you to everybody at MERCEDES GP PETRONAS for the relentless work in 2010 when we achieved the best possible results with our technical package in the last third of the season. We are looking forward to the new season and our plan is to improve our new car in

This ends the party political broadcast.




You want me to comment on Alonso waving at petrov? Ok, I think it was unreal to blame petrov, he was only running his own race. having said that, I do like the Latin temperament of people like Alonso, you always know when they are pi$$ed about something.

Its a far cry from the boring cold calculating robotic nature demonstrated by let's call them more "northern european" peoples.

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Well done Lewis. New driver, new era.





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2010:11:16:17:34:59 by Herman Munster.

Scuderia Donkeyrari!!!

I hope next year we dont give those Pinkys any chancein WDC fight. Alonso/Ferrari is the nemesis.
Lets get back to dreamteam ways!!

Of course Alonso is reckoned to be the finest driver on the grid. Vettel must be a close second.

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Well done Lewis. New driver, new era.

A little late to the party here...interesting debate. I would sum up this race and season as one of ups and downs.

As a fan of F1, I am happy Schumi is back in the game, and only wish my man, JV, was still around as well. I think next season will see a much improved Schumacher. Nico showed very well and I hope more improvement to come next year.

I can't wait for testing! I want the season to keep going.

Cheers everyone!

As fans we were treated to a great season ending with 4 drivers still alive points wise. I wish the track would have provided more passing opportunities to add to the excitement but it was equal for all and the Red Bulls were fast. I'm glad yet another driver was awarded the WDC.
I can only imagine if Kimi and JV somehow managed the grid in 2011 we'd have 7 WDC's in the line-up.

sessions