McLaren has verified that it was a fuel pressure problem which took Lewis Hamilton out of the lead in Abu Dhabi on Sunday. When leading the race on Lap 20, the 2008 World Champion was forced to pull onto the grass at Turn 15.
“I’m gutted,” he said bluntly, having also dropped out of the lead in Singapore. “I’d had really good pace all weekend and I feel certain we could have won today. I had a fuel pressure problem – it was very sudden, I was just entering a corner and the car just died on me. The only mistake I made all weekend was having a brief moment on Lap 2, when my brakes weren’t fully up to temperature and I locked up into Turn 8. After that, everything was going really well. The car was a dream to drive, I was cruising and pulling away.”
Team-mate Jenson Button was overhauled by Sebastian Vettel with just over three laps to go, confirming that he had failed to finish on the Abu Dhabi podium for the first time ever.
“Congratulations to Kimi (Räikkönen) – he’s a man of few words, but he’s all about racing and he deserved this victory today,” said the former Brawn GP driver. “For me, it was quite a fun race. I had a few good battles out there, but unfortunately I didn’t have the pace in the car to take the fight to the leaders today. At the end, I couldn’t have kept Sebastian back – he was on newer Options (Soft compound tyres), so it was impossible to get the same amount of traction from my older Primes (Medium compound).”
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  K. Raikkonen | Lotus | 1:45:58.667 |
| 2. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | +0.852 |
| 3. | S. Vettel | Red Bull | +4.163 |
| 4. | J. Button | McLaren | +7.787 |
| 5. | P. Maldonado | Williams | +13.007 |
| 6. | K. Kobayashi | Sauber | +20.076 |
| 7. | F. Massa | Ferrari | +22.896 |
| 8. | B. Senna | Williams | +23.542 |
| 9. | P. di Resta | Force India | +24.160 |
| 10. | D. Ricciardo | Toro Rosso | +27.463 |
| Full results | |||
| Jenson Button | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Jenson Button photos | |||
| Lewis Hamilton | |||
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| More Lewis Hamilton photos | |||
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