Räikkönen and Lotus win in Abu Dhabi

The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix offered one of the most beautiful races of the season. Kimi Räikkönen wins for the first time since his return to Lotus F1 Team and thus signs the 19th victory of his career, his first achievement since the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix. It is also the first victory for a Lotus since the 1987 Detroit Grand Prix which was won by Ayrton Senna. Iceman was in second place after an excellent start and took the lead following the retirement of Lewis Hamilton who threw in the towel following a mechanical problem. Fernando Alonso secures second place after having tried everything to catch the Finn. The main thing is done for the pilot Ferrari which takes three points from Sebastian Vettel, its direct rival in the Championship. The pilot Red Bull had an excellent performance starting from the pits. After damaging his front wing, the German took advantage of the safety cars and good pit stops to get to the front and manage to overtake Jenson Button in the final laps. The Championship leader maintains a ten-point lead over his Asturian rival.

Pastor Maldonado achieved a very good result by securing fifth place after missing his start. The pilot Williams ahead Kamui Kobayashi and Felipe Massa, while Bruno Senna, Paul di Resta and Daniel Ricciardo complete the top ten. The race was interrupted twice. Nico Rosberg collided head-on with Narain Karthikeyan's HRT F112 which broke its engine right in front of the driver Mercedes. But the race card occurred on the 39th lap after a pileup involving Sergio Pérez, Romain Grosjean, Paul di Resta and Mark Webber. While the Sauber driver and the Force India team resident took the advantage over the Frenchman's Lotus E20, the Mexican went wide and returned to the track, cutting off the 2011 GP2 champion. The Australian could not avoid the car of the tricolor driver and joined the list of retirements after making several errors with contacts with Pastor Maldonado and Felipe Massa.

Jean-Eric Vergne seemed able to get into the points but the driver Toro Rosso lowered his pace at the end of the event and finally finished 12th behind Michael Schumacher. Charles Pic did not see the checkered flag after returning to the pits to retire.

Discover the analysis of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix carried out by our special correspondents in the next issue of AUTOhebdo, available from Tuesday in digital version for iPad, PC and Mac, and from Wednesday on newsstands.