OzRacingWrap

So far this season one thing that has always stood between Mark Webber and victory has been his team-mate Sebastian Vettel.  On the opening lap at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi, Vettel spun off at the second turn with a right rear puncture for once removing that road block for Webber.

Sadly he was not in a position to take full advantage having qualified a somewhat disappointing fourth and losing a spot to Ferrari's Fernando Alonso off the line.

From there he settled down into a battle with the McLaren of Jenson Button through the early part of the race for third spot.

That battle lasted until a slow pit stop which dropped Webber back into a battle with Felipe Massa.  A switch in strategy to a three stop and just once lap on the hard tyre saw Webber in the end finish ahead of Massa but he was not able to threaten Button for the last spot on the podium.

Alonso meanwhile was chasing Lewis Hamilton in the other McLaren for the lead.  Whilst he kept the pressure up all race Hamilton was never seriously threatened and went on to record a strong win.

“This result is just fantastic. I’m usually my own biggest critic – I’m always hard on myself when I make mistakes – but I really felt like I maximised everything today. To be able to sustain that kind of pace, under constant pressure, and not make mistakes, is really satisfying." enthused Hamilton post race

"For most of the race I was concentrating on managing the gap to Fernando [Alonso]. He’s such a strong driver. He’ll never give you an inch, in fact. Into the closing laps I found myself beginning to think about victory, but I didn’t want to do that really so I kept saying to myself: ‘Don’t even go there!’ It worked: I stopped my mind from wandering and I didn’t allow myself to think about the win until I’d crossed the line.

"To have Jenson on the podium alongside me was great – great for me, great for him, great for the team, and a great boost as we move towards the end of the season. The team has been fantastic all weekend – the strategy, the pitstops, everything – really top-class. The whole package came together today and I owe everyone a big thank-you. This is so uplifting – for the team and for me. To be able to walk away with a smile feels just fantastic: victory is good for the soul.”

For his part Webber however was left to lament what might have been despite taking a risk with the strategy “On the second pit stop, we fitted the option tyre again to try and cut the race down to something different; it was certainly worth a bit of a punt.

"The two DRS zones are tricky here; in the first one it was easy to get the move done, but in the second one you couldn't, so if I passed Jenson there, he could just get you back again. I think it was a bit of a gimmick today the DRS, it was difficult to make the move stick and harder to get the move done, as I say in Turn 11." was his view of DRS post race

"I had a pretty good pace on Jenson anyway at the end of the first stint, he went one lap shorter than us which was no problem, but then we had a bad first pit stop, so we lost a lot of time with that. It put us on the back foot. I got the car back onto the leaders, but we were out of position by then.”

At the other end of the field Daniel Ricciardo was again locked into a battle with his teammate and in the end looked to have gained the upper hand.  However his race ended when he was forced to retire on track with a  electrical problem just three laps from the end.

The young Australian driver was hard on himself for his decisions early in the race, feeling he could have done more “I had a pretty good take off at the start, passing Glock and getting right behind Trulli, and then I stayed on the inside for turn 1, which was probably a mistake as Glock overtook me on the outside. There were a few moves that I should have maybe committed to a bit stronger.

Overall though he was happy with the pace of the HRT F1 "The pace was good but I lost a few places at the start and had to play catch up. I closed the gap with Tonio but then I couldn’t get past him. For the second stint I was able to keep up with Glock. I was then caught in traffic and, three laps from the end, my car stopped. It was a shame to end the race prematurely but, overall, the pace was good and I was setting some good times so that’s something to take into the next race.”