Rosberg took his sixth straight pole and win at Yas Marina, while the fight for fourth and seventh decided the final points of a season already settled.
The 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the closing race of the Formula One season, held on 29 November 2015 and the nineteenth round of the year. Nico Rosberg won for Mercedes from pole, with Lewis Hamilton second and Kimi Raikkonen third for Ferrari.
Nico Rosberg took the 2015 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on 29 November at Yas Marina, the final round of a season that had already been settled. He took his sixth consecutive pole position, beat his teammate Lewis Hamilton, and gave Mercedes its twelfth one-two finish of the year. Kimi Raikkonen completed the podium for Ferrari.
Was anything still undecided going into Abu Dhabi?
Both championships had already been decided. Hamilton had won the drivers' title at the United States Grand Prix three races earlier, and Mercedes had secured the constructors' title at the Russian Grand Prix four races before the finale. Hamilton led the drivers' standings with 363 points, 66 ahead of Rosberg, and Mercedes led Ferrari 660 to 401 points in the constructors' table, so the order at the top was fixed.
Several places were still open lower down. Valtteri Bottas was one point ahead of Raikkonen for fourth, and Felipe Massa was sixth, 19 points behind Bottas. Kvyat and Ricciardo were separated by just ten points in the fight for seventh, while Lotus were nine points clear of Toro Rosso in the constructors' table.
The race also marked a milestone for Force India, its 150th under its current name. Pirelli's two dry choices for the weekend were the yellow-marked soft and the red-marked super-soft.
Rosberg's sixth straight pole turned into a win, and the last points of a settled season went to the battle for fourth and seventh.
How did practice and qualifying go?
Hamilton was fastest in the first Friday session, with a time of 1m43.754s, and Rosberg was more than a tenth of a second behind. Kimi Raikkonen was third and Kvyat fourth, and Ricciardo went back to the older specification Renault power unit after being unhappy with the updated one in Brazil. Palmer replaced Grosjean at Lotus, but a water leak restricted him to nine laps.
Rosberg then topped the second session at 1m41.983s, and Hamilton finished more than a tenth behind him. Sergio Perez was third but could not run for the last twenty minutes because of brake issues. Alonso was ninth, less than a second off Rosberg.
In the Saturday session Rosberg was fastest again, with 1m41.856s. Hamilton was almost three-tenths slower, and his session was spoiled by traffic and a spin after he hit the kerb at turn five. Sebastian Vettel was third, ahead of Perez.
In qualifying, Mercedes sent both drivers out on the super-soft tyres in the first part, while Ferrari stayed on the softer compound until late in the session. Vettel aborted his final flying lap because he believed his time was enough. Button then set a faster time and pushed Vettel back to 16th, eliminating him. Vettel later called it a small mistake with a big consequence.
Alonso punctured on his last lap and missed the cut. Both Manor drivers went out at the foot of the order, Will Stevens finishing 1.137 seconds ahead of Roberto Merhi. In the second part Hamilton was two-tenths of a second ahead of Rosberg, while Grosjean stopped with technical problems at turn seven and Button missed Q3 by two-tenths of a second.
The top ten contested the pole. Rosberg set a time that was almost four-tenths faster than Hamilton's, and it gave him his sixth consecutive pole. Sergio Perez held third for much of the session, but Raikkonen beat him on his second run to take the place. Ricciardo and Bottas filled the third row. Grosjean was demoted five places for a gearbox change. Stevens took a five-place penalty for a change to his Control Electronics unit, and Merhi, whose team altered his suspension after the car left parc ferme, started from the pit lane.
How did the race unfold?
Hamilton got away slowly at the start, but he kept both Perez and Raikkonen behind him while Rosberg held the lead. Further back, Alonso clipped Nasr before crashing into Maldonado, who retired as a result. Alonso pitted for a new front wing and later served a drive-through penalty, which dropped him to the back.
Early on, Hulkenberg gained to fifth and Vettel to twelfth after the opening lap. Bottas lost positions and was tenth. Kvyat and Nasr came in for the harder tyre on lap five, with Ricciardo, Massa and Perez following a lap later. Sainz, who had been held up on his stop by a problem with the tyre change, lost time as a result. Bottas was then sent out into the path of Button after his own stop, which damaged his front wing and forced a replacement the following lap, and he later took a five-second penalty.
Rosberg built a lead of more than a second, which gave Hamilton no chance to use DRS. Massa passed Ericsson for ninth on lap 13, and a lap later Hamilton overtook Vettel for second after a mistake by the Ferrari driver. Vettel lost another place to Raikkonen on lap 16, because the two were on different strategies.
Two laps after passing Sainz, Verstappen locked his brakes and flatspotted his tyres, which forced him to pit and emerge in 15th. Vettel stopped for the first time on lap 24 and came out sixth. By lap 29 Hamilton had started reeling in Rosberg, closing to under two seconds.
Rosberg pitted on lap 32, with Raikkonen following, although Raikkonen's stop was delayed and cost him around four seconds. Vettel changed to super-soft tyres on lap 41. Hamilton pitted for the last time the following lap, having first asked his team whether he could go the rest of the way without another stop. He emerged twelve seconds behind Rosberg and immediately began to cut into the gap.
Further back, Verstappen overtook Nasr and Button, but he was judged to have forced Button wide and was given a five-second penalty. Grosjean moved into tenth on lap 53 by passing Sainz, and a lap later he took ninth from Kvyat. Hamilton never got close enough to threaten his teammate, and Rosberg crossed first for his sixth win of the year, with Raikkonen rounding out the podium.
Did the season change in the final race?
Raikkonen's third place moved him to fourth in the drivers' standings, taking the position from Bottas, and that was the only change in both championships. Mercedes finished the season with a record 703 constructors' points, the highest total ever scored by a team. Vettel finished fourth ahead of Perez and Ricciardo, and Renault confirmed its takeover of Lotus after the race, which made it the last grand prix for the team under the Lotus name.
| Driver | Result | Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Nico Rosberg | Winner | Pole, his sixth consecutive; sixth win of 2015 |
| Lewis Hamilton | Second | Drivers' champion since the United States Grand Prix |
| Kimi Raikkonen | Third | Took fourth in the standings from Bottas |
| Sebastian Vettel | Fourth | Described 2015 as a miracle after a winless 2014 for Ferrari |
| Max Verstappen | Twelfth, then penalised | Five-second penalty for forcing Button wide; three penalty points |
| Pastor Maldonado | Retired | Hit by Alonso early on; his last Formula One race |
What did the drivers say after the race?
David Coulthard conducted the podium interviews. Rosberg called the US race his low point, praised Hamilton as one of the best around, and said that winning against that level of opposition felt even better. Hamilton said the team had surpassed its own expectations, and he admitted he was happy the season was over.
Raikkonen said that finishing third was never nice, but he would take it after the earlier races. He dismissed the idea of a Finnish championship battle with Bottas. Vettel described his 2015 season as a miracle after a winless 2014 for Ferrari, and said that third and fourth was the best outcome they could have hoped for.
Rob Smedley of Williams said the team had released Bottas at the right moment in the early pit-stop incident with Button, and that the accident happened because Bottas had seen Button too late. Verstappen picked up three penalty points on his licence, leaving him just four short of a one-race suspension.
