Official Not606 Abu Dhabi GP Chat and Predictions

A selection of photos from the race and afterwards.

Two titles, two different teams Oh, and that start was the start of dreams.

 

Dominant car but Vettel consistently outperformed Webber, who tended to have some bad luck during those four seasons. He certainly got lucky in 2012 but I believe you make your own luck.

 

Everybody needs a good car underneath them to win. But you need a certain magic to drive it to its maximum.
Lewis has shown that this season. Even with mechanical issues. Respect for that.

 

People still tell me Glock let Hamilton past him.

 

Exactly. Nobody wins with a bad car. Sometimes you can win with a car that's not the best, but not bad.

The Merc this year though was super dominant. We've not seen anything like this since the late 80's. Thankfully though there was an inter-team battle otherwise it could have been a crappy season.

I hope the field is closer next season. I want all the big-hitters and the young guns duking it out every race.

 

Toyota gambled on staying out on the same tyres instead of changing to inters or wets.

 

A well deserved title for Hamilton. 11 race wins shows he had the edge over Nico on race day, whilst Nico has put up some superb drives himself, especially in quali.

I'm not Hamiltons biggest fan but the kid has raw speed- he didn't have the opportunity to fight Seb very much and McLaren gave him a dud car in 2009 to defend his title with. His ability merits a second championship. He was in the running but for poor luck in 2012. The best thing now is for there to be multi-team, multi driver battles for him to try to win in the next few years because the sport needs the drivers to build characters.

The sport desperately needs Honda to deliver a very good engine and for Ferrari and Renault to upgrade massively.

 

And Jarno Trulli in the sister car was putting in near-identical sector times to Glock. It's a complete non-starter as an argument.

 

So I wonder how Vettel is going to perform at Ferrari. I know he's not had the best car this year, but he's really struggled with it. How's he going to perform in a dog of a Ferrari? I just can't see them getting that car right. Not sure it's the best move for Ferrari or Vettel.

I also think that RBR stopping Vettel from testing is a bit petty. They should just let him move on.

 

Are we heading in to Westy's law territory?

 

I've been looking at the comments on the Mercedes Facebook page. Lots of unhappy Germans on there.

Apparently Lewis didn't deserve it, he was allowed to win because of money and marketing, Nico's car was sabotaged, and Nico's car is always the one that breaks down. And Lewis gets called s**t a lot. And undeserving.

Nice to know our views of drivers and proceedings aren't coloured by nationalist sensibilities.

 

It would be the same here had the tables been turned. Some people just loose all rationality when it come to sport. The scary thing is that they live among us.

 

I was wondering when sabotage was coming into this. I bet they weren't complaining in 1994.

 

Honestly? I don't believe he has the skill and patience that Michael brought to the team in 96. He will probably just end up messing around and getting side tracked with Kimi.

I just don't think history will repeat itself to such a perfect extent.

 

Ferrari's issues run far deeper than their driver line-up, so I can't see it being a happy start for Vettel at Ferrari. They've supposedly got a new boss to replace Mattiacci, and this appointment needs to be utterly spot on if they're going to progress, and I still can't see them challenging before 2016 as most of the work on the 2015 car will have been done under the current, woefully-substandard regime.

If Ferrari want to compete again they need a radical overhaul, and I think they're too caught up in "being Ferrari" to make the amount of changes required.

 

You can say that again.

 

Depends how many veto's and technical bypasses the FIA give Ferrari this time.

 

I can't see Vettel and Ferrari going straight back to winning races because they haven't addressed the core issue of the engine development.

 

Assuming Alonso is going to McLaren I can't see either Alsonso or Vettel achieving anything in the short term with their new teams. At least Vettel has more time on his side, but I'm not sure he will stick it out that long if there's no reason to think things will improve.

In both cases I'm a bit mystified by their choices.

 

I think McLaren may come good in 2016 but I fear Ferrari are stuck in a rut for a few more years, it's a modern world and they are stuck in the past. Ricciardo should be in with more of a shout next season and hopefully Rosberg won't fall back