With Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen separated by just a handful of seconds with a few laps of the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix remaining, it was a pretty tense end to the F1 finale.
But while the mid-stage of the race wasn’t particularly exciting, there were a fair few good moments at the start and lots going on towards the end too. Here are the 10 best moments from the last race of F1 2016:
Verstappen goes around
Hamilton and Rosberg had great starts, but the Red Bulls had poor ones. As Verstappen tried to fight back into Turn 1, he clanged into the side of Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India and spun around. He was very lucky to keep it out of the wall with that one…
But he fights back
Verstappen’s recovery from a disastrous first lap quickly kicked into high gear. He soon made his way up the order, already up to 12th by lap six. At one stage he was making multiple overtakes in the space of one lap. Classic Max!
No! Jenson, No!
No ha sido una rotura repentina. Se ha montado de más en el piano y la ha roto. #F1 pic.twitter.com/JURFg47FlZ
— MrAlexF1 (@MrAlexF1) November 27, 2016
Jenson Button’s (most likely) final race in F1 ended in frustrating style when he broke his front-right suspension on the Turn 9 kerb while in the top 10. It was a cruel send-off for Button, but F1’s never predictable. When he got out of the car in the pits and waved to the crowd, they were all on their feet. That got us right in the feels.
Kvyat steals bike
Impressive how you can summarize Kvyat’s F1 season in one picture. #F1 #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/7xqyOHxnKn
— Giedo van der Garde (@GvanderGarde) November 27, 2016
Daniil Kvyat’s 2016 season ended with a gearbox problem and retirement, but at least he got to have a nice bike ride back to the paddock after climbing out of his car. We’re not sure where he got the bike from, though.
Rosberg vs Verstappen
Having come out of his pit stop behind Verstappen, it took Rosberg a while to move back ahead of him but the two scrapped it out pretty closely and gave us some much-needed action as things settled down.
Peak Palmer
Jolyon Palmer has been racing quite well recently but that all unravelled when he locked up and rammed into the back of Carlos Sainz Jr. into Turn 7. Oops…
Vettel moves on up
Vettel adelanta a Ricciardo. Ahora a por Verstappen… Mientras tanto ORDENAN a Hamilton que ruede en 45,1 #F1 pic.twitter.com/LvHuTIseiy
— MrAlexF1 (@MrAlexF1) November 27, 2016
On super-soft tyres, Vettel moved quickly ahead of Ricciardo and then Verstappen, who found himself running third despite his first lap drama. The overtakes were typical Vettel – aggressive, but decisive. Surprisingly, though, there were no whinging radio messages.
Tension, tension, everywhere
📻”Lewis, this is Paddy. We need you to pick up the pace to win this race”
📻”I’m in the lead right now. I’m quite comfortable where I am” pic.twitter.com/CmepAo1Nrn
— Formula 1 (@F1) November 27, 2016
The final laps were SO TENSE. Hamilton was backing Rosberg up, Vettel was trying to get into second. Verstappen was lingering in the background. We had no clue what would happen and it was damn awesome. In the end, Hamilton won but Rosberg took P2.
Donuts!
Rosberg ended up ditching the usual rules and went onto the start/finish straight to do some awesome donuts, celebrating his 2016 title in style! Nice one Nico!
Awkward podium
But, of course, we all knew the podium would be pretty awkward. In the green room beforehand, Hamilton seemed to be keeping his distance. There was an awkward hand shake and hug on the podium but in the grand scheme of things it could’ve been a lot worse.