Valtteri Bottas held off colleague Lewis Hamilton as Mercedes traveled to a prevailing one-two in the season-shutting Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Hamilton, who won his fourth big showdown two races previously the finish of the season, seemed speedier in the second piece of the race.
Hamilton and Vettel had both needed to end this season with a triumph, for various reasons – Hamilton to keep his previous title match from winning the last two races; Vettel to give Ferrari a lift going into the off-season.
Be that as it may, Bottas, who has battled for shape in the second 50% of the season, drove a created and great end of the week, beating Hamilton to shaft and controlling the race from the front.
Not at all like in Brazil last time out, where he lost the race at the principal corner in the wake of being passed by Vettel, Bottas made a solid begin and forced himself on the race from the primary lap.
He set a speediest lap on lap 21, however Bottas brought down that blemish on lap 24, proposing that had Hamilton expanded his run, he would have lost ground instead of picked up it.
Hamilton diminished Bottas’ lead by 0.7 seconds on his initially flying lap on his new tires, getting to 1.1secs behind his partner, where he remained for four laps previously running wide at Turn 17 and losing a brief period.
For whatever remains of the race, Hamilton was inside 1.5secs of Bottas yet the stalemate stayed to the end.
A bolt up by Bottas at the Turn Five clip on lap 49 enabled Hamilton to quit for the day, again he lost ground in the twisty last segment as his car’s streamlined features were upset by the grimy air behind the main Mercedes.
Bottas had a 2.5-second lead when he influenced his lone pit to stop on lap 20. Hamilton remained out for three further laps trying to attempt to build up a sufficient prompt rejoin the track in front yet did not have enough pace.
Yet, he couldn’t get very sufficiently close to challenge for the lead in a dull and to a great extent activity free finale.
Sebastian Vettel was outflanked in third place to underline the anticlimatic route in which Ferrari have finished a season that had for so since quite a while ago guaranteed to such an extent.
