F1: Hamilton wins but Rosberg clinches the title

Lewis Hamilton won Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix but, by finishing second behind his Mercedes AMG Petronas’ team-mate, Rosberg clinched the crown.

It was Hamilton’s 53rd career Formula One victory, his tenth of the season and his fourth in a row. But it wasn’t enough to wrestle away the championship from his Brackley team-mate.

Rosberg came into the season finale with a 12-point lead over Hamilton and secured the championship by five points. Rosberg joins his father Keke in the realm of Formula One world champions, as he won the 1982 title.

Keke and Nico Rosberg are only the second father-son duo to win championships with Graham and Damon Hill the first to do so.

Haas F1 Team drivers Romain Grosjean and Esteban Gutiérrez finished 11th and 12th respectively.

Grosjean started from 14th to finish 11th, one spot shy of a point-paying outcome. It was the Banbury team’s eighth 11-place finish of the year with Grosjean collecting three of those results while Gutiérrez accounted for the other five.

Grosjean maintained his 11th-place standing in the running order and set his sights on the McLaren of tenth-place Fernando Alonso. Despite being a second faster than the two-time champion with ten laps to go, Grosjean could not close the gap and had to settle for 11th.

Gutiérrez had climbed to 11th by the end of lap 28. Another pit stop took Gutiérrez to the finish but it allowed Grosjean to leapfrog his Banbury team-mate.

Haas ends its debut season with a very respectable eighth-place finish in the constructor standings, one place ahead of Renault.