Sebastian Vettel snatched the drivers' title from the grasp of his rivals and became the youngest F1 driver to become F1 World Champion after a brilliant race over the Abu Dhabi night sky ending a glorious season for Red Bull Racing.
Although Vettel had grabbed the pole position and his team-mate was back in 5th place, his task for the title was passing through Alonso who qualified 3rd and was holding the title even if Vettel had won the race. But in the start of the race, Button who started 4rth overtook Alonso who he still had the title in his hand in the case he would have finished inside the top five.
It was a clean race for the leaders and the only big incident came immediately behind the leaders, when Michael Schumacher was spinning his Mercedes in an attempt to defend position from team-mate Nico Rosberg. Unable to put the brakes on in time, Tonio Liuzzi ploughed into Schumacher's car, his front wing and nosecone just missing the seven-time world champion's head. It marked the end of a disappointing return to Formula One for Schumacher but it could easily have ended in far worse circumstances.
When the race restarted Vettel was disappearing into the distance, pulling out a second a lap to Alonso by lap eight. Yet, Red Bull was the first team to blink on lap 12, Webber coming in for an early tyre change, the Australian paying the price for running his one set of soft tyres longer in qualifying. Four laps later it was Alonso's turn, Ferrari reacting to Red Bull's move and the Spaniard coming out just ahead of Webber. This move proved a backfiring gamble from Ferrari because Spaniard's hard tyres failed to come to the ideal performance level quickly and he languished in the midfield behind Vitaly Petrov and Nico Rosberg, who grabbed a quick stop behind the safety car. Alonso's and Webber's title chances as well disappeared into the Abu Dhabi night finishing 7th and 8th respectively while Vettel was marching to glory after his pitstop not even Button's legendary tyre management and race craft could threat his dominance
As it was, Vettel won by four points from Alonso with Webber 14 points behind in third. But McLaren's double podium means they finished second in the constructors' standings ahead of Ferrari. Some may say that justice was done after the rigged German Grand Prix result.
