Sebastian Vettel had never lead the Drivers? Championship table in 2010 till the moment he took the checquered flag on the 55th and final lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday. And when he did, he leap-frogged team mate Mark Webber as well as title leader Fernando Alonso to ultimately take home the Drivers? trophy in what has been a season that can only be described as superiorly exciting. In doing so, Vettel has also become only the second German driver to become the Formula 1 World Champion-the other German Champion is quite obviously, Michael Schumacher.
Coming into the 2010 Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Vettel was all of 15 points behind Alonso and 7 behind Mark Webber. But he was also distinctly faster than any other driver at the Yas Marina Circuit, not only showing his blistering pace in the practice sessions, but also in qualifying, grabbing his 10th pole position this year. There is no doubt that Sebastian Vettel was the most deserving of the four title contenders in 2010 ? he failed to score any points in 4 of the 19 rounds out of which he didn?t finish the race 3 times and was classified 15th in Belgium. Plagued with reliability issues and bad luck in the starting few races, the lowest race finish Vettel yet managed was 7th at Silverstone.
Lady Luck may have provided the opening that Vettel needed at Abu Dhabi to be crowned the 2010 Champion, but tactical errors on the parts of Ferrari and McLaren also made sure that Vettel got his well-deserved title. After Michael Schumacher spun out and Liuzzi became collateral damage on lap 1 bringing out the safety car, Nico Rosberg and Vitaly Petrove quickly pitted for tyres and ended up ahead of both Webber and Alonso when they made their scheduled stops. The Renault has been pretty quick in the last third of the season and that meant Alonso just couldn?t find his way past Petrov till the very end. Similar misfortune struck Hamilton, who needed to win at any cost to keep his title chances alive. A mistimed pitstop meant that he was stuck behind Robert Kubica?s Renault for a long time till the Pole finally made his stop with under 10 laps to go. But none of that takes away the fact that Vettel drove an amazing race from start to finish. The emotion of being World Champion finally overcame Vettel as he spoke to his team on the pit radio on the slowing down lap.
