As we approach a season finale in which Lando Norris, Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri can still win the 2025 Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship, it’s important to look back on the last time more than two drivers still had a chance at the world title coming into the final race; the 2010 F1 Abu Dhabi GP was the 19th and final round of an enthralling season which would end with one of Fernando Alonso, Mark Webber, Sebastian Vettel or Lewis Hamilton as the world champion.
Ferrari’s Alonso was the championship leader coming into the final weekend, eight points ahead of Webber and 15 ahead of Vettel who had won last time out at the 2010 F1 Brazilian Grand Prix. Hamilton was an outside contender, 24 points adrift of the Spaniard’s 246.
The race was held at the Yas Marina Circuit on November 14th, 2010, and would be the first time in F1 history that four drivers were still in with a chance at the championship with just one race remaining in the season.
Who would lay down a marker in qualifying at the 2010 F1 Abu Dhabi GP?
The first part of qualifying was safely navigated by the quartet of championship hopefuls as both HRTs, both Virgins, both Lotuses and Sebastian Buemi in the Torro Rosso made up the bottom seven.
Q2 was a similar story with the biggest shock perhaps being that last race’s polesitter in Brazil Nico Hulkenberg was eliminated in P15. He was ahead of Vitantonio Liuzzi and Jamie Alguersuari but behind Nick Heidfeld, Adrian Sutil, Kamui Kobayashi and Robert Kubica.
In Q3, the youngest of the four leading drivers Vettel set a lap time of 1:39.394 to take his tenth pole position of the season, but certainly his most impressive up to that point. Hamilton qualified in second, just +0.031 seconds off the German’s time.
Alonso would start from third whilst outgoing world champion Jenson Button stopped Webber from making it an all top four of championship contenders.
A scary accident on lap one
All 24 drivers made clean starts off the grid with the most notable overtake happening as Button moved past Alonso to demote the championship leader down to fourth.
However, when the cars arrived at turn six, Michael Schumacher attempted a move around the outside of his teammate Nico Rosberg.
The move failed to come off as the seven-time world champion spun his Mercedes around and Liuzzi was a passenger as he could do nothing to avoid the backwards facing German.
The two cars collided, and Liuzzi’s Force India came inches away from crashing head-on into Schumacher in the cockpit. Both drivers emerged uninjured, but their cars were not so fortunate, and the debris led race control to send out the safety car.
None of the championship hopefuls pitted under the safety car’s neutralised conditions and the racing resumed at the start of lap six.
Alonso and Webber get caught in traffic
Webber, who had not won a race since the 2010 F1 Hungarian Grand Prix, was noticeably struggling for pace in P5 and made his first pitstop of the race on lap 11. He came out behind three cars, including Rosberg, who had all made their pitstops behind the safety car.
Alonso pitted next after a brush with the barriers at turn 19. He came back out ahead of the Red Bull, but both drivers soon found themselves trapped behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault, where they remained for the rest of the Abu Dhabi GP.
Hamilton and Vettel pitted on laps 18 and 19 respectively whilst McLaren kept Button out to see if he could hold up the German and help his teammate’s outside chances of the F1 crown.
Could Button trouble Vettel?
Hamilton arrived at Yas Marina fourth in the championship which meant he had to win the race and hope that other results would go his way if he was to take the 2010 championship.
After pitting into traffic, the young Briton had moved his way back into the top four, now behind the Renault of Kubica.
However, Button eventually had to make his one and only pitstop on lap 39, handing Vettel the lead once again as the 2009 world champion rejoined the track in P4 behind Kubica and Hamilton.
“Du Bist Weltmeister”
Kubica’s pitstop from second on lap 46 allowed him to come out still ahead of the Petrov, Alonso and Webber trio with the Ferrari and Red Bull’s championship aspirations vanishing at the sight of the back of the Renault in front of them.
Hamilton closed the gap to Vettel a tiny bit with a fastest lap of the race on lap 47, but no-one was going to deny the German victory.
Vettel crossed the line at the end of lap 55 to win the Abu Dhabi GP and more importantly the 2010 F1 World Drivers’ Championship despite having been 15 points behind Alonso coming into the final race.
The two McLaren’s of Hamilton and Button completed the podium ahead of Rosberg and Kubica. Petrov, Alonso and Webber crossed the line in sixth, seventh and eighth with Alguersuari and Felipe Massa completing the top ten.
Why fans still talk about this season finale today
Vettel’s win at the 2010 F1 Abu Dhabi GP crowned him as the youngest world champion to date at 23 years, 134 days. He kicked off what became a historic streak of four straight world titles for Red Bull from 2010 to 2013.
It’s particularly relevant when looking towards the 2025 season finale coming up at Yas Marina where Piastri will be looking to repeat Vettel’s act of coming from third in the championship to take the crown at the chequered flag.
Alonso and Webber’s inability to pass Petrov was also one of the many factors behind F1’s introduction of the DRS (Drag Reduction System) to make overtaking easier for the following 2011 season.
What did the drivers make of the 2010 Abu Dhabi GP?
Vettel said: “I’m speechless. I don’t know what you are supposed to say in these moments, it has been an incredibly tough season for myself and all of us, physically and mentally.
“We always kept believing in ourselves – no matter what people said – in the team and in our car. I kept believing in myself and today was a special day all round.
“I knew all I could try to do was win this race and do my best. We only led this Championship once this season, but it was when it mattered.”
Alonso said: “It’s a shame to get to the end of the season and then lose the title at the final moment, but that’s racing, that is sport.
“Everything went wrong today, from the start itself to the strategy. With hindsight, it would have been better not to pit so soon, but it’s easy to say that when you have all the facts: however, it was definitely not an easy decision.
“I want to congratulate Red Bull and its drivers: over the course of the season they have had a little something extra than us and they deserve to be where they are today.”
Webber said: “You’ve got to take your hat off to Sebastian, he’s done a great job all year and to lead the Championship at the last race, he’s got the timing right and I fully congratulate him on the World Championship.
“I was in with a chance of winning the Championship until the last race, so I must have been doing something right and in the end there are a lot of positives.
“I feel I have driven very well for most of the season and that’s the most important thing to me.”
Hamilton said: “We’ve ended this year on a high – to get both of us onto the podium and to clinch runner-up spot in the constructors’ world championship represent a great achievement for the whole Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team.
“I was able to match Sebastian’s pace in the early part of the race – but, after my pitstop, I was stuck behind Robert. It was just impossible to get past him – he made no mistakes – so it wasn’t possible to resume my attack on Sebastian. But that’s the way motor racing goes sometimes.”
