Finally after 21 races in the
2016 Formula One season and a neck and neck fight with teammate Lewis Hamilton,
Mercedes Benz driver Nico Rosberg won the 2016 F1 championship title, despite
coming in second in the final race at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi. At the
end of it, the points were in favour of Rosberg. In the process of winning the
F1 title for 2016, this being his first, he emulated father Keke. Rosberg has
won this championship after contesting 206 Grands Prix in the past.
Before the final round of the season 21st, only 12 points separated Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton for the 2016 title. It was a tense 2016 Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as less than two seconds covered the top four at the chequered flag.
Third to come in was Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari followed by Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing. Daniel Ricciardo followed his Red Bull team mate home, with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen taking sixth ahead of Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez. Williams’ Felipe Massa and McLaren’s Fernando Alonso completed the top ten.
Lewis Hamilton found this last race of his in the 2016 season a bitter sweet victory as he knew that even though he won this race, the crown would slip out of his hands. He crossed the finish line 0.4s ahead after 55 laps to score his 10th win of the season, the 53rd of his career - and to lose his world title. Rosberg kept his cool despite the pressure from Vettel.
Force India had reasons to smile as Hulkenberg took a seventh for the team, and with team mate Sergio Perez eighth Force India easily secured their fourth position in the constructors’ stakes. But Perez only just got home ahead of the fighting Williams of Felipe Massa, who signed off on his F1 career by maintaining his record of scoring points in each Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in which he has competed, and Fernando Alonso, who took the final point for McLaren. Unfortunately for Jenson Button of McLaren, his last race ended up with him retiring early on in the race.A right-front suspension failure put him out after a heavy kerb contact. He was joined in retirement by the Toro Rossos of Daniil Kvyat and Carlos Sainz, Williams’ Valtteri Bottas and Renault’s Kevin Magnussen.
“Winning the championships is a great feeling”, said Hamilton while congratulating his team mate, “and I’m looking forward to fighting with him for it again next year.”
Rosberg, in the meantime was all set to celebrate with his father Keke and mother Sina. Rosberg and his wife Vivian too hugged after the race as this was the greatest day of his racing career. As the race ended, Rosberg took permission on the radio for doing donuts on the track and when the answer was yes he went ahead and delighted the thousands thronged at the race circuit. “Thank you so much guys, that's a childhood dream come true,” he screamed over the radio.
With this victory, Nico Rosberg became the 33rd driver to win a Formula One world championship crown and is only the third German to win an F1 title. Other German winners have been Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel. The three now account for 12 of the last 24 drivers' championships, with of course, Schumacher dominating in numbers. Nico’s father Keke Rosberg won his championship for Finland. Germany now have three F1 world champions, Brazil too has three (Emerson Fittipaldi, Nelson Piquet and Ayrton Senna) and so does Finland (Keke Rosberg, Mika Hakkinen and Kimi Raikkonen).
2016 DRIVER STANDINGS
POS DRIVER TEAM PTS
1 Nico Rosberg MERCEDES 385
2 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 380
3 Daniel Ricciardo RED BULL RACING 256
4 Sebastian Vettel FERRARI 212
5 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING 204
6 Kimi Räikkönen FERRARI 186
7 Sergio Perez FORCE INDIA 101
8 Valtteri Bottas WILLIAMS 85
9 Nico Hulkenberg FORCE INDIA 72
10 Fernando Alonso MCLAREN 54
11 Felipe Massa WILLIAMS 53
12 Carlos Sainz TORO ROSSO 46
13 Romain Grosjean HAAS 29
14 Daniil Kvyat TORO ROSSO 25
15 Jenson Button MCLAREN 21
16 Kevin Magnussen RENAULT 7
17 Felipe Nasr SAUBER 2
18 Jolyon Palmer RENAULT 1
19 Pascal Wehrlein MRT 1
20 Stoffel Vandoorne MCLAREN 1
21 Esteban Gutierrez HAAS 0
22 Marcus Ericsson SAUBER 0
23 Esteban Ocon MRT 0
24 Rio Haryanto MRT 0
2016 CONSTRUCTOR STANDINGS
POS TEAM PTS
1 MERCEDES 765
2 RED BULL RACING TAG HEUER 468
3 FERRARI 398
4 FORCE INDIA MERCEDES 173
5 WILLIAMS MERCEDES 138
6 MCLAREN HONDA 76
7 TORO ROSSO FERRARI 63
8 HAAS FERRARI 29
9 RENAULT 8
10 SAUBER FERRARI 2
11 MRT MERCEDES 1