LEWIS HAMILTON in 1998

Bottas puts Williams on top in Abu Dhabi test

Williams' Valtteri Bottas set the pace on the opening day of the season's final Formula One test in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.

Fresh from his podium finish at Yas Marina on Sunday, Bottas hit the front early on, spent much of the day at the top of the timesheet, and eventually clocked a lap of 1m 43.396s after improving his own benchmark in the final 15 minutes.

The Finn's progress contrasted with that of McLaren's interim Honda-powered car, its eagerly-anticipated first official runs not coming until the afternoon due to early electrical issues.

When it did appear, the team's official reserve driver and GP2 runner-up Stoffel Vandoorne stopped out on track on only his second lap. The Belgian was able to get out for one final tour in the closing minutes of the session, ending the day with three laps under his belt.

"We'd hoped to get a few more laps today, but we had a fuel data-logging issue that stopped the car a couple of times," Vandoorne explained. "However, the team are already analysing the situation and we'll hopefully cure it ahead of tomorrow. Nevertheless, it's been a very positive day for us. At this stage of development, any lap we complete has a benefit – and it's better to be solving these initial teething problems in November rather than in Jerez next February."

Kimi Raikkonen helped Ferrari finish second overall, while his 2015 team mate and four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel spent time in the team's garage meeting his future crew members.

Nico Rosberg was half a second down on Raikkonen in the all-conquering Mercedes F1 W05 Hybrid, which he was driving just two days after the agony of his title defeat. The German completed 114 laps - more than any other driver.

Recently-crowned GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer was fourth fastest after an interrupted day with Force India. An engine issue restricted his morning running, while further technical gremlins meant more time was lost in the afternoon, his car rolling to a halt on circuit and triggering one of several red flags.

The Briton did at least manage to get going in the final hour and jumped into third, only to be demoted when Rosberg edged him by just 0.004s late on.

"I really enjoyed my first experience at the wheel of a Formula One car," Palmer said. "Despite a few technical issues early on, in the end we managed to get back on track and have a solid hour of running, getting up to speed fairly quickly. Sahara Force India is a team that gives young drivers good chances and I would love to get a role with them."

Carlos Sainz Junior, this year's Formula Renault 3.5 champion, was fifth fastest in the Red Bull RB10, fractionally ahead of Will Stevens, driving for Caterham after making his Grand Prix debut with the team on Sunday. Both Sainz and Stevens broke into triple figures in the lap count.

Lotus reserve driver Charles Pic was seventh, with Marcus Ericsson - testing for Sauber, with whom he will race next season - and Toro Rosso's 2015 rookie Max Verstappen rounding out the top nine ahead of Vandoorne.

Verstappen also had an interrupted day as a suspension issue put him into the barriers on only his third lap, though he was able to return to the track in the final hours of the afternoon.

"Unfortunately we didn't get much running in the morning, but in the afternoon we carried out very useful long runs, which helped me with my understanding of how to manage the tyres," he reflected. "To be able to run the car for a longer period than just an hour and a half, which is all I had done so far when running in the FP1 sessions, was definitely a good experience and lap by lap, I got more used to the car."

The Dutchman will stay in the STR9 for the second and final day of the Abu Dhabi test. Stevens at Caterham and Vandoorne at McLaren will do likewise, but the rest of today's field will switch.

Among the new faces will be Ferrari protege and GP2 racewinner Raffaele Marciello, Mercedes reserve driver Pascal Wehrlein, and Alex Lynn, this year's GP3 champion and a member of Red Bull's junior team, who will test for Lotus.

Unofficial Tuesday times from Abu Dhabi:
1. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1m 43.396s, 80 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1m 43.888s, 81 laps
3. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1m 44.512s, 114 laps
4. Jolyon Palmer, Force India, 1m 45.516s, 37 laps
5. Carlos Sainz, Red Bull, 1m 45.339s, 100 laps
6. Will Stevens, Caterham, 1m 45.436s, 102 laps
7. Charles Pic, Lotus, 1m 46.167s, 89 laps
8. Marcus Ericsson, Sauber, 1m 46.253s, 95 laps
9. Max Verstappen, Toro Rosso, 1m 47.194s, 55 laps
10. Stoffel Vandoorne, McLaren, no time, 3 laps

(source: f1.com)

2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix review

The view from my seat.

The race was a bit disappointing because of Nico Rosberg's technical difficulties. I would have wanted them to fight for the win till the end. Why does this never happen?

The last time when Lewis Hamilton won the championship in 2008 it was very close that Felipe Massa would have won it all. Still it would have been more nice if they would have fought for the win at the top and not so that Lewis got the minimum points and Felipe won.

I love the fact that Lewis won the last race this year. It's much cooler! It shows how much he deserved the championship.

If we talk more about the race then I must say that Felipe Massa had a great start! Nice to see that he has had a bit better results finally. He lost to his teammate in the final standings but it doesn't look as bad now because of the good results in the end part of the season.

Valtteri Bottas took a podium again and was 4th in the final championship standings (leaving drivers like Jenson Button, Kimi Räikkönen, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso behind him). Very good if you ask me! Mercedes and Red Bull were better than them but he still managed to keep Vettel behind him.

Valtteri's start was a disaster though. He has had bad starts several times this season. He said that he has had problems with his clutch this season more than once and he hopes that Williams fixes the issue for the next season.

Jenson Button showed that he's still got it but he can't get better results with that car. Let's hope that he will stay for next season. I don't wanna see the next year without Button. I have nothing against Kevin Magnussen but I just prefer the 2009 champion. He is a bigger character.

Now let's see my predictions and the results:

Pole position: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. It was the other Mercedes.

Race:

1. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - CORRECT
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes - WRONG. He had technical problems. Felipe Massa was 2nd
3. Valtteri Bottas, Williams - CORRECT

Fastest lap: Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes - WRONG. It was Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo.

Surprise: Kimi Räikkönen. Leave him alone he knows what he's doing! - I was personally not surprised by his position. It was a typical finish for his worst season ever.

I changed my predictions later for the predictors league. I was still sure that my original predictions would stick but I had to take a risk. The guy in front of me in the standings had almost the same predictions as me so if we would have gotten the same points I would have stayed second in the standings. My goal was to win so I changed the top3 order to ROS, BOT, HAM. It did not pay off so I dropped to 5th in the final standings (which is almost the same for me as 2nd. Winning is the most important thing!).

The F1-4-LIFE PREDICTORS LEAGUE continues in 2015!

The rules:

POINTS:  1st - 3  2nd - 5  3rd - 10 

HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun. 

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes. 

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW & MH. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway. We may also come up with some other prize if it helps. 

That's it for today and if you want to send me feedback then email me: f14lifeblog@gmail.com

2014 PREDICTORS LEAGUE FINAL STANDINGS

1. Peter McLaren -> 131 points
2. Darcy P Lang -> 113 points
3. Larry Gallagher -> 111 points
4. Elliott Robson -> 108 points
5. AE (F1-4-LIFE) -> 107 points
6. Regina Ehrnrooth -> 90 points
7. Rich Kewell -> 85 points
8. Dylan Curry -> 82 points
9. JT (F1-4-LIFE) -> 64 points
10. MW (F1-4-LIFE) -> 60 points
11. Jon Yountz -> 57 points
12. Jaakko livari -> 48 points
13. Anthony Brian Ayrton Senna -> 43 points
14. Jonathan Riggs -> 36 points
15. Liutauras Raulynatis -> 33 points
16. Leonardo Machado -> 27 points
17. Rab Mckinney -> 24 points
18. David Perry -> 21 points
19. Jake Lakin -> 19 points
20. Daniel Vanderburg -> 18 points
21. Martin Francis -> 16 points
22. Martin Mihalic -> 14 points
23. Shaun Magnano -> 14 points
24. Abijith Kv -> 13 points
25. Leo Harry Gowing -> 11 points
26. Flavio Wallis -> 10 points
27. Jayson Nufc Nicholson -> 10 points
28. Craig Whitehead -> 10 points
29. Joel Booth -> 9 points
30. Paolo Gagliardi -> 9 points
31. Jared Tallott -> 8 points
32. Steven Peli -> 6 points
33. Mark Newman -> 5 points
34. Ryan Lane -> 5 points
35. Will Leahy -> 3 points
36. Craig Lymer -> 3 points
37. Coilin Higgins -> 3 points
38. Craig Taylor -> 3 points
39. Christopher Damien Wiseman -> 1 point
40. Vitor Lobo -> 1 points
41. MH (F1-4-LIFE) -> 0 points
42. Pippaa Chilton -> 0 points
43. Richard Gehl -> 0 points
44. Junaid Khan -> 0 points
45. Ewan Darlington -> 0 points
46. Chris Kemp -> 0 points
47. Saadi Tate -> 0 points
48. Theodore Dickman -> 0 points
49. Josh Dennis -> 0 points
50. Brian Dodgy Discs Hughes -> 0 points
51. John Hersam -> 0 points
52. Elaine Hannon -> 0 points
53. Natalie Bandee -> 0 points

POINTS: 1st - 3
2nd - 5
3rd - 10

+ possible bonus points
HOW IT WORKS: the aim of the game is simply predict who comes where in the race (top3). A total of 18 points can be won on a race day. If you get winner and and 3rd place right but 2nd wrong you get 13 points same if you get 1 correct. eg. 2nd you get 5 points. If a driver wins the race and you said he would come 2nd or 3rd no points would be awarded. Same if he came in another position, and you predicted that wrong. A table will be posted up every race weekend. The point scoring system will change once the cars become more competitive. Everyone will say a merc 1,2 so it won't be close or fun.

HOW TO SUBMIT YOUR PREDICTIONS: send an email to f14lifeblog@gmail.com or message the Facebook page to submit your predictions. You have until lights out to make them. If you submit them when the race has started they won't count. So be quick! like the Mercedes.

THE PRIZE: the winner of the league will win themselves a admin place on the F1 4 LIFE page along side AE, JT, MW & MH. If you don't want to be an admin you are welcome to participate anyway.

2014 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX - Race results

1	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	55	Winner	2	50
2	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	55	+2.5 secs	4	36
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	55	+28.8 secs	3	30
4	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	55	+37.2 secs	20	24
5	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	55	+60.3 secs	6	20
6	27	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	55	+62.1 secs	12	16
7	11	Sergio Perez	Force India-Mercedes	55	+71.0 secs	11	12
8	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	55	+72.0 secs	19	8
9	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	55	+85.8 secs	8	4
10	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	55	+87.8 secs	7	2
11	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	55	+90.3 secs	9
12	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	STR-Renault	55	+91.9 secs	10
13	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	54	+1 Lap	18
14	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	54	+1 Lap	1
15	21	Esteban Gutierrez	Sauber-Ferrari	54	+1 Lap	14
16	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	54	+1 Lap	13
17	46	Will Stevens	Caterham-Renault	54	+1 Lap	17
Ret	10	Kamui Kobayashi	Caterham-Renault	42	+13 Laps	16
Ret	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	26	+29 Laps	15
Ret	26	Daniil Kvyat	STR-Renault	14	+41 Laps	5

2014 Drivers final standings

1	Lewis Hamilton	British	Mercedes	384
2	Nico Rosberg	German	Mercedes	317
3	Daniel Ricciardo	Australian	Red Bull Racing-Renault	238
4	Valtteri Bottas	Finnish	Williams-Mercedes	186
5	Sebastian Vettel	German	Red Bull Racing-Renault	167
6	Fernando Alonso	Spanish	Ferrari	161
7	Felipe Massa	Brazilian	Williams-Mercedes	134
8	Jenson Button	British	McLaren-Mercedes	126
9	Nico Hulkenberg	German	Force India-Mercedes	96
10	Sergio Perez	Mexican	Force India-Mercedes	59
11	Kevin Magnussen	Danish	McLaren-Mercedes	55
12	Kimi Räikkönen	Finnish	Ferrari	55
13	Jean-Eric Vergne	French	STR-Renault	22
14	Romain Grosjean	French	Lotus-Renault	8
15	Daniil Kvyat	Russian	STR-Renault	8
16	Pastor Maldonado	Venezuelan	Lotus-Renault	2
17	Jules Bianchi	French	Marussia-Ferrari	2
18	Adrian Sutil	German	Sauber-Ferrari	0
19	Marcus Ericsson	Swedish	Caterham-Renault	0
20	Esteban Gutierrez	Mexican	Sauber-Ferrari	0
21	Max Chilton	British	Marussia-Ferrari	0
22	Kamui Kobayashi	Japanese	Caterham-Renault	0
23	Will Stevens	British	Caterham-Renault	0
24	Andre Lotterer	German	Caterham-Renault	0