Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: Are we there yet?

It’s been a long, long F1 season. Perhaps whoever is crowned champion after Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix should be allowed to count it as two championships.

Or perhaps half a championship – the 20 races so far have rather highlighted the advantage the Mercedes drivers have had. Aside from two impressive Red Bull victories, it’s been a Mercedes man on the top step at every race.

Which means whoever comes off second best this weekend will have failed to tie up the championship despite winning at least nine races in a 21-race season. In fact, Lewis Hamilton could quite conceivably win his tenth race this year and … well, you know the rest.

So who should we be looking out for this weekend?

Rosberg, obviously

Nico has been Mr Cautious of late, safe in the knowledge that second places are now enough to win him the title. In fact, third place is enough to win him the title this weekend.

He’s qualified second for the last three races and there’s no reason to suspect he won’t be there for a fourth time.

But the race itself is going to be a huge test of his mental strength. Unless Hamilton has a disaster, Rosberg is actually going to be racing the Red Bulls, because he has to finish in front of at least one of them (well, assuming that Ferrari haven’t been sandbagging for the entire season) to guarantee that third place.

Now here’s a thing. You know how we keep hearing about Hamilton’s appalling mechanical problems this season? Well, he has missed out on podiums only four times out of 20 races.

Rosberg? He’s missed out on a top-three position five times. Yeah, yeah statistics can tell you anything, I know.

But I remember Hamilton’s championship slipping away right at the end of the 2007 season, only for him to snatch glory from Felipe Massa at the last corner of the last race the following season.

This championship is not a done deal.

Hamilton, obviously

Lewis has been fearsome in qualifying of late, utterly dominating Saturdays and, in the process, dominating his team mate too.

So let’s put him on pole.

Then it’s down to the start. Again.

A competent start will keep him ahead of Rosberg, who’s not going to risk a first-corner catastrophe.

But anything less will drop him back into the danger zone where a charging Red Bull or Ferrari could finish his season with a turn-one bump.

In fact, Hamilton’s best chance of victory could come from a collision at turn one… between Rosberg and anything other than another Mercedes.

If Hamilton ends the first lap at the front of the field, his tactics will be fascinating.

It won’t be enough to power away and maintain a healthy gap from Rosberg at the front, assuming Rosberg is lying second.

Hamilton would then have to find a way of bringing the Red Bulls into play to at least distract Rosberg.

He could slow Rosberg – the Mercedes are weak in turbulent air and Rosberg would struggle to pass Hamilton, even if the Brit was driving slightly slower than normal.

Of course, this would leave Hamilton without a safety net in case a pit stop goes wrong but, really, the only thing that will matter to a triple World Champion is getting that fourth championship; winning at the Yas Marina Circuit isn’t that big a deal once you’ve been crowned king of F1.

Hamilton, naturally, has said he wouldn’t consider such a tactic.

Reality check: F1 is a sport awash with tacticians and, if they can’t come up with an alternative way for Lewis to prevail, don’t be surprised if he complains about a lack of grip, a little understeer, braking problems on bumpy corners, those things that can add a few tenths of a second here and there to a lap time…

The boys in Red, the boys in red

Of course, the big hope among spectators is that the ever-improving Red Bulls will be able to get in among the Mercs and stir things up a bit.

Even if they don’t, there is a cracking battle to be fought between Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.

If young Max outscores his German opponent by five points, he’ll leapfrog him into fourth place in the Drivers’ Championship.

That would mean that Ferrari’s lacklustre season would end with them a disappointing third in the Constructors’ Championship and an infuriating fifth and sixth in the Drivers’ Championship … even though Verstappen started the season in the relatively modest surroundings of Toro Rosso.

Kimi Raikkonen could make a late charge for glory too, picking up the pieces if it all goes wrong for Verstappen and Vettel.

As ever, the best action is unlikely to be at the front of the pack.

The Force is strong with him

If Sergio Perez has a solid weekend for Force India, he’ll finish seventh in the Drivers’ Championship.

Seventh isn’t usually something to shout about but that seventh would make him the most successful non-Merc, Red Bull or Ferrari driver of the season.

And that’s the sort of performance that gets a driver noticed (or, in Checo’s case, noticed again).

Perez and Nico Hulkenberg have helped Force India to the brink of a fourth-place finish in the Constructors’ Championship, frustrating Williams in the process.

That’s no small feat, particularly given that, at the beginning of the season, Force India found themselves in the spotlight for the wrong reasons, when owner Vijay Mallya was called for questioning in a money-laundering investigation while the team’s other major shareholder, Subrata Roy, was in jail for financial impropriety.

The off Button

After 305 grands prix, 15 F1 wins and a World Championship for good measure, Jenson Button has confirmed that Sunday will be his last Formula 1 race.

Following McLaren’s rather undignified nonsense about keeping him on contract for another two years with the chance of a drive at some point, the 36-year-old has decided to call it a day.

He may be twice the age of some of those on the grid but he’s a fans’ favourite.

Cheeky, humble, always willing to talk, Button has never given the impression that he takes his good fortune in F1 for granted. And he’s been a pretty handy driver too, particularly when the car was set up just right, or when the rain was separating the men from the boys.

Though he’s a different character from that other retiree, Felippe Massa, both will be missed on the grid. Button took a world title, Massa was denied his title in the cruellest of fashions, in 2008.

Both were very close to their fathers – Massa still is, and Button’s late father John (aka Papa Smurf) was a familiar smiling face around the F1 paddock.

And both were generous with fans and with media alike, not always an easy thing in the F1 pressure cooker.

Don’t be surprised if Button turns up on telly a bit more in the years ahead but, in the meantime, here’s hoping he manages to score points in his final F1 appearance. He’s earned a proper farewell.