Pirelli, Hembery: “The puncture on Vettel's car was an unusual accident”

Lewis Hamilton took his third victory of the season in Abu Dhabi on Pirelli tyres, adopting a two-stop strategy with two stints on the P Zero Yellow soft, followed by a stint on the P Zero White medium. Hamilton thus achieved the 17th success of his career, after winning this year in China and Germany.

A similar strategy was adopted by all of the top three finishers, while fourth-placed Red Bull Racing driver Mark Webber attempted a three-stop tactic, switching to the harder compound with one lap to go. Force India driver Paul di Resta was the only finisher to opt for just one pitstop, switching from medium to soft on lap 27 and then running for 28 laps on the P Zero Yellow softs, until the checkered flag. To complete the 55 laps of the race, most drivers used a two-stop strategy.

Hamilton took the lead on the first lap, after the retirement of the new World Champion Sebastian Vettel due to damage to the rear of his car following a puncture. Pirelli engineers are still investigating the cause of the tire's sudden deflation. The crash ended Red Bull Racing's run of 19 consecutive podium finishes, and is also Vettel's first retirement after 19 races.

As usual, the Abu Dhabi race started at dusk and ended in darkness, with track temperatures stabilizing at 28 degrees Celsius towards the end of the grand prix. This factor contributed to extending the life of the tyres, with the soft lasting for around 25 laps and the medium for around 30. The race was characterized by a strenuous battle between Hamilton and Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso, who moved from fifth to second position in the first lap. In the final series of pitstops, Alonso stayed on track two laps longer than Hamilton – to gain ground and attempt to pass his rival. The Spaniard finished in second place, his tenth podium of 2011 and his first in Abu Dhabi: the only race in which he had never finished in the top three so far.

Despite starting from the back of the grid due to mechanical problems he had in qualifying, Rubens Barrichello managed to recover during the race by finishing 12th thanks to a two-stop strategy, which saw him start on the mediums and then complete two stints on the soft. Using a similar strategy, Kamui Kobayashi also finished in the points for the first time in seven races for Sauber.

The comment of Pirelli Motorsport Director, Paul Hembery: “Together with Red Bull Racing, we are still analyzing what remains of Sebastian Vettel's tire to try to understand what happened. This appears to be a very unusual incident and we have already looked into this with Sebastian, from which there appears to be no immediately obvious cause, especially as the set of tires had already been used in qualifying. However, until we know exactly how things are there is no point in making assumptions. As temperatures dropped, our soft and medium tires faced slightly different track conditions than usual, with different teams implementing a wide variety of strategies, from one to three stops. We were told that last year only 11 overtakings were made here, so this race was definitely a nice contrast. Normally at this point we would pack up to go home, but this week we have the young drivers' test, where we will test some of our 2012 tires for the first time.”