LEWIS HAMILTON SCORED PERFECT WEEKEND RESULT

Lewis Hamilton capped a glorious 2019 campaign with an emphatic lights to flag victory in the season-closing Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, beating Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by more than 16 seconds, with Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc third. Starting from his fifth pole position of the season, the six-time world champion led every lap of the race to score his 11th win of the season and added fastest lap to seal the sixth grand chelem of his career. Only the legendary Jim Clark has more, with eight.

At the race start, Hamilton made a good start from P1 to lead into the first corner. Behind him Verstappen also got away well but quickly came under pressure from Ferrari’s fast-starting Leclerc. Verstappen defended but at the end of the long second straight, the Ferrari man swept past the red Bull to take P2.

Behind him Sebastian Vettel in the second Ferrari settled into fourth ahead of the second Red Bull of Alex Albon. The Thai driver came under pressure in the earlt laps from the McLarens of sixth-placed Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz who had passed Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo off the line to steal P7 but he was able to fend off the challenge and the field settled into the first stint.

Norris opened the pit stop window for the leading soft tyre starters by shedding his starting tyres for hard compound Pirellis on lap eight and Ferrari pitted both its drivers at the end of lap 12. Leclerc’s stop for hard tyres went smoothly, there was a problem with Vettel’s front left wheel and the German lost timewhile the problem was rectified. Leclerc resumed in P4 behind Hamilton, Max and Alex, but Vettel slipped to seventh.

Red Bull Racing then pitted Albon and the Thai driver rejoined just two seconds behind Vettel.

At the front, Hamilton and Verstappen continued to circulate their starting medium tyres and while others further back pitted, Valtteri Bottas, who had started from due to engine penalties, rose to fourth place behind Leclerc, with Vettel fifth and Albon sixth.

Verstappen eventually made his sole stop of the evening on lap 25, taking on hard tyres. He emerged in third place, though just four seconds behind Leclerc and on newer tyres. Mercedes then brought Hamilton in at the end of the next lap and with a sizeable gap back to Leclerc the Briton rejoined in the lead.

After his pit stop Verstappen began to report throttle problems in his car but despite the difficulty he quickly closed down Leclerc and on lap 32 muscled past the Ferrari down the inside into Turn 8. Leclerc fought back by trying to retake P2 around the outside into Turn 11 but Max held a strong line and Leclerc was forced to give up the fight.

Further back, Bottas was closing hard on the leaders and on lap 39 he reeled in Albon and charged past the Red Bull man. With the Finn on a charge, Ferrari opted to pit both its drivers on lap 38 and when they emerged, Leclerc found himself 29 seconds behind Verstappen, while Vettel was 18.6s behind of Albon.

Armed with new medium tyres, Vettel then closed on Albon and the penultimate lap the German powered past the Red Bull to settle for sixth place.

At the front, Hamilton marched on serenely and after 55 laps he crossed the line to take his 11thvictory ahead of Verstappen, for whom P2 ahead of the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was enough to seal third place in the Drivers’ Championship. Fourth place went to Mercedes’ Valtteri Bottas, with Vettel fifth ahead of Alex. There was plenty of drama in the lower half of the top 10 on the final lap as Sergio Pérez passed Lando Norris for seventh place, while behind ninth-placed Daniil Kvyat, Carlos Sainz stole P10 from Daniel Ricciardo.

ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX, YAS MARINA CIRCUIT 55 laps, 305.470km., Weather: Dry.
CLASSIFICATION:
P.	DRIVER	TEAM	TIME/GAP
1.	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes AMG	1h34:05.715
2.	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	+ 16.772
3.	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	+ 43.435
4.	Valtteri Bottas	Mercedes AMG	+ 44.379
5.	Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari	+ 1:04.357
6.	Alexander Albon	Red Bull	+ 1:09.205
7.	Sergio Pérez	Racing Point	+ 1 lap
8.	Lando Norris	McLaren	+ 1 lap
9.	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso	+ 1 lap
10.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	McLaren	+ 1 lap
11.	Daniel Ricciardo	Renault	+ 1 lap
12.	Nico Hülkenberg	Renault	+ 1 lap
13.	Kimi Räikkönen	Alfa Romeo	+ 1 lap
14.	Kevin Magnussen	Haas	+ 1 lap
15.	Romain Grosjean	Haas	+ 1 lap
16.	Antonio Giovinazzi	Alfa Romeo	+ 1 lap
17.	George Russell	Williams	+ 1 lap
18.	Pierre Gasly	Toro Rosso	+ 2 laps
19.	Robert Kubica	Williams	+ 2 laps
FASTEST LAP: LEWIS HAMILTON - 1:39.283
NOT CLASSIFIED:
20.	Lance Stroll	Racing Point	technical
HYBRID HISTORY - YAS MARINA CIRCUIT 2014 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h30:02.555 2015 Nico Rosberg - Mercedes AMG - 1h38:30.175 2016 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h38:04.015 2017 Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes AMG - 1h34:14.062 2018 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h39:40.382 2019 Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes AMG - 1h34:05.715 @MakFormula1 - Republic of Macedonia

***CLASSIFICATION AFTER 21/21 RACES***
DRIVERS:
1.	Lewis Hamilton	413
2.	Valtteri Bottas	326
3.	Max Verstappen	278
4.	Charles Leclerc	264
5.	Sebastian Vettel	240
6.	Carlos Sainz Jr.	96
7.	Pierre Gasly	95
8.	Alexander Albon	92
9.	Daniel Ricciardo	54
10.	Sergio Pérez	52
11.	Lando Norris	49
12.	Kimi Räikkönen	43
13.	Daniil Kvyat	37
14.	Нико Хулкенберг	37
15.	Lance Stroll	21
16.	Kevin Magnussen	20
17.	Antonio Giovinazzi	14
18.	Romain Grosjean	8
19.	Robert Kubica	1
20.	George Russell	0
CONSTRUCTORS:
1.	Mercedes AMG	739
2.	Ferrari	504
3.	Red Bull	417
4.	McLaren	145
5.	Renault	91
6.	Toro Rosso	85
7.	Racing Point	73
8.	Alfa Romeo	57
9.	Haas	28
10.	Williams	1