Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle on the incredible thrills and spills of Abu Dhabi, how Sebastian Vettel went from pitlane to podium, and the contrast between Kimi Raikkonen's on and off-track performances...
Monday 5 November 2012 08:54, UK
It's a funny business this F1 lark.
Grosjean managed to have three separate close-combat contacts which is rather worrying but the third and final one was caused by Sergio Perez sweeping back on the track. Naughty but inevitable - and Grosjean should have seen it coming nonetheless. The move of the race was Vettel on Button to take the final podium spot. It was total class from both drivers in terms of being on the limit of grip whilst racing wheel to wheel and not crashing. It can be done even if JB will be licking his wounds a bit on that one. Both Williams drivers made it into the points with fine drives, Pastor Maldonado without KERS for much of the race and Bruno Senna recovering from that first corner incident very well, as did Paul Di Resta for Force India. The shunt between Nico Rosberg and Narain Karthikeyan was scary. The HRT suffered power steering failure and so Narain lifted off just as Nico Rosberg was lining him up for an outbrake into the tricky fast and blind double right hander sequence. The survival cells and wheel tethers did a good job for everybody in the vicinity. They benefitted from the death and injury of many other drivers before them and the hard work of the regulators and designers. And so on to Austin. The track looks spectacular but the race will have to go some to beat Abu Dhabi this year. MB
