[Official] Driver of the Grand Prix: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2019

[Born Racer]

Who gets your vote?

[F1Pete]

Bottas obviously. He probably would have placed 3rd if drs wasn't disabled for so long.



Sent from my SM-G955W using Tapatalk

[GT6]

Gave my to Perez as he managed to get 7th or perhaps 6th would be nice to know soon

[bjohnsonsmith]

Sainz. He qualified well and finished in the top 10, which was enough to give him a very respectable 6th place n the WDC.

[Mike Bell]

Lando for doing an impressive amount of laps on his second tyre set, and almost holding off Perez. And for his after race team radio!

Kudos to the Champ for leading every lap, VB for a clean drive through the field, and Max for his team radio also!

[steve_r]

Could have gone for any one of 5 or 6 drivers. Hamilton, Bottas, Verstappen, Norris. Went for Perez in the end. He used to drive these different tyre stragies back in his Sauber days and pull off good results. This was like that - overhauling the McLarens and Renaults thanks to making a clever stragey work.

[GORDON STREETER]

Lewis for me, however the Dutchman drove another good clean race.

[E.B]

Went for Perez with kudos to Lando and Bottas.

[chunterer]

Checo. Dogged drive using different strategy getting ahead of better packages.
Plus that pass on Norris was one of the moves of the season.

[TrapezeArtist]

Difficult this time, for all the right reasons.
If I don't vote for Lewis, what more am I expecting him to do?
Verstappen was fast, clean and looked pretty faultless.
Checo got his car to a place I wouldn't expect to see a Racing Point.
Lando did a great job and of course his personality shone through as always.
Carlos Jnr got his one point that he needed.
But Valtteri started from the back (through no fault of his own) and charged it up to 4th. No crazy moves. No banging wheels. No broken wing. He even had the good sense not to throw it all away in a futile attempt to get on the podium. (If the DRS had worked as normal he may have got through the mid-field quicker and then actually made it to 3rd.)

[Aysedasi]

I nearly well for Hamilton for an imperious drive but I'll too give it to Perez. Good drive. I can't go with Bottas as his car was so superior to the majority of those he overtook. It was actually relatively easy even without DRS early on.

[Peter Mallett]

This is quite difficult. I enjoyed the lack of DRS and indeed, superior chassis or not, VB drove extremely well. It's always been the same, if you have a better car you will succeed. Doesn't make the result any less valid IMO. Think back to the Lotus 79 and/or the Williams FW14B as examples.

Then we had Sainz going for that single point to get 6th in the Championship. Again drove brilliantly and gave the place back when he ran out of road earlier in the race.

Of course Lando put in a good stint especially against Perez on worse tyres.

Verstappen kept it clean but whinged his way to second.

Hamilton was imperious, no question.

Hulk's swansong failed to net a single point (see Sainz).

Albon was pretty good but suffered from the tyre strategy. Still, drove a clean race and is looking good for next year IMO.

Perez was pretty good and once again outshone his team mate. Enjoyed better tyres than most at the end but still took a long time to pass Lando.

So for me it is Bottas.

[crmalcolm]

Stroll - retired the car early to save on component wear for future races.....

[Peter Mallett]

There are no future races! They'll re set the parts for next season.

[BertMk2]

Perez for me - the Racing Point hasn't been good this year so to drag it that far forwards is a good effort. Kudos to Sainz and Norris as well.

[chillibowl]

Sainz for me.

side note...bit disappointed in Ferrari/Leclerc for not putting in a better effort in trying to beat Max to 3rd overall on the drivers table. perhaps outside their control/no extra life left in the engine etc but still a disappointing end to a season full of disappointments from the red squad.

[sparkione]

There were some good performances all the way down the field, as there usually are in the last race – either for off-season bragging rights or trying to impress present/future employers. But Lewis was in a class of his own, dominating the entire weekend – 17sec is a rare gap between 1st and 2nd these days. If Merc is as good as this next year, Lew will overhaul MS on race wins and equal him on WDCs. His dilemma then will be whether to stick with the team for 2021 – with all the uncertainties of the new regs – to try to get that tantalising 8th title, or swan off to Maranello, which he doubtless intends doing at some stage. But there are worse problems to have...

[Aysedasi]

Right now its a no-brainer. Even with regs changes, why would you leave Mercedes (a team which as a driver he effectively 'owns') for the complete uncertainty and inconsistency of Ferrari? He'd probably be better off going to RB than Ferrari. I don't see him going anywhere until he has the 8th WDC in the bag.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

Right now its a no-brainer. Even with regs changes, why would you leave Mercedes (a team which as a driver he effectively 'owns') for the complete uncertainty and inconsistency of Ferrari? He'd probably be better off going to RB than Ferrari. I don't see him going anywhere until he has the 8th WDC in the bag.

Absolutely. He has a far better shot at getting that 8th WDC with Mercedes, despite the reg changes in 2021, than with Ferrari. Driving for Ferrari has not been such a great career move, firstly for Alonso and subsequently Vettel.

[chillibowl]

how much is Ferrari willing to pay to prevent a Merc driver from breaking Schumi's record? how much will Merc be willing to pay to ensure that its their driver who does?

good thing for LH that driver salaries will not be part of the proposed 2021 budget cap!

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by chillibowl

how much is Ferrari willing to pay to prevent a Merc driver from breaking Schumi's record? how much will Merc be willing to pay to ensure that its their driver who does?

good thing for LH that driver salaries will not be part of the proposed 2021 budget cap!

Quite a lot I should think and they would need to improve vastly, before Hamilton jumps ship.

[Neil22]

Lewis with kudos to Valtteri and Max.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by sparkione

.... or swan off to Maranello, which he doubtless intends doing at some stage. But there are worse problems to have...

You have to be totally taken in by the glamour/hype/legend to go to Ferrari now. When Schumacher did it, Brawn, Todt and Byrne were there too. They weren't really "Ferrari". By the time Alonso and then Vettel joined, Ferrari was Italian again, and you've seen the result.

[chillibowl]

Hard to imagine what motivates the superstar athlete. Highly skilled, ambitious, and successful people often set lofty goals for themselves and the allure of turning Ferrari around and becoming true legend in the process may be too much to resist.

Presumably with 7 WDC by 2021, perhaps he sees achieving the 8th with Ferrari as the next step and his chance to cement the greatest of all time position.

Talent and ego right!

[Mike Bell]

Nope, I can’t see LH ever joining the red team. He’ll retire before that happens....

Hopefully by the time he does or doesn’t no one will remember I made the above statement!

Interesting that the DOTR votes are spread more widely for a change. Suggests several decent drives?