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Kimi Raikkonen managed to hold off Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso in the closing laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to take his first win of his comeback season for Lotus, with Sebastian Vettel coming up from the back of the pack to finish third.
Thanks to Vettel’s drive, he remains in the lead of the championship by ten points with two races to go.
This was Kimi’s first victory since Spa in 2009, but there were times when it looked like we were going to be in for a different result. Pose sitter, Lewis Hamilton, lead away from the start and managed to recover from an early mistake that allowed Kimi to pull alongside him. One in front, Lewis proceeded to pull away from the pack.
Soon though, there was a safety car, when Nico Rosberg launched his Merc over the back of an HRT. At this stage, Vettel had worked his way up into 13th place. Hamilton managed to stay in first position during the restart but on lap 19, his car suffered a mechanical problem and dropped out of the race.
This left Kimi in front, charging to break away from the pack. Soon Vettel rose to second place before he came into the pits to change tyres and his front wing, which had sustained damage earlier in the race, and dropped into fourth lace behind Alonso and Jenson Button.
The final 12 laps were a sprint to the finish with Alonso slowly hauling in Kimi and Vettel hauling in Button. Vettel pulled an amazing move to get passed Button, taking third place, but Alonso couldn’t get quite close enough to make a move on the Lotus and finished the race right behind him.
F1 Grand Prix Abu Dhabi - results 1. Raikkonen Lotus-Renault 1:45:58.667
2. Alonso Ferrari + 0.852
3. Vettel Red Bull-Renault + 4.163
4. Button McLaren-Mercedes + 7.787
5. Maldonado Williams-Renault + 13.007
6. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari + 20.076
7. Massa Ferrari + 22.896
8. Senna Williams-Renault + 23.542
9. Di Resta Force India-Mercedes + 24.160
10. Ricciardo Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 27.463
11. Schumacher Mercedes + 28.075
12. Vergne Toro Rosso-Ferrari + 34.906
13. Kovalainen Caterham-Renault + 47.764
14. Glock Marussia-Cosworth + 56.473
15. Perez Sauber-Ferrari + 56.768
16. Petrov Caterham-Renault + 1:04.595
17. De la Rosa HRT-Cosworth + 1:11.578
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