[speedmiester]

Wow, what a race!!!
A brilliant finale to the season.
Well done Nico.
There will be a lot of frayed nerves and tensions in the Mercedes Garage till the start of next season.

[nkrishnap]

Rosberg finally kept his cool and won the championship. If the situation was reverse and If Nico had backed Hamilton up like this, he would have been moaning and cribbing all race

Wish Mercedes drivers drove this slow to make the season interesting

[Hayek]

What a race! Missed most of this F1 season but the finale was perfect. Brilliant tactics by Hamilton but Nico held his nerve. Well done Nico - a worthy successor to Schumi and Vettel.

[arunphilip]

Race Result - Rosberg Takes the Title!

• Hamilton won the Abu Dhabi GP, with Rosberg in second, and Vettel rounding out the final podium step, in a thrilling contest.
• With this, the 2016 World Drivers' Championship title goes to Rosberg, with Hamilton as the runner-up in a tightly fought contest.
• Verstappen came in fourth - the top four were very close over the finish line as Hamilton backed them up significantly to try and improve his title chances.
• Ricciardo in fifth beat Räikkönen, who came in sixth.
• Bottas' retirement meant that Force India have secured fourth in the constructors championship, in front of Williams. They further cemented this with Hülkenberg and Pérez finishing 7th and 8th respectively, compared to Massa finishing 9th for Williams.
• Alonso rounded out the final point scoring position, which means that he beats Massa to 10th in the WDC.
• The Haas drivers came in 11th and 12th.
• Retirements were Renault's Magnussen (steering damage), Williams' Bottas (suspension issue), McLaren's Button (broken suspension), Toro Rosso's Kvyat and Sainz (both gearbox failures).

Noteworthy Events from the Race

The proceedings kicked off with a flypast - remember that Etihad Airways is the title sponsor of this grand prix

Rosberg overtakes Verstappen on lap 21 to retake second

Mercedes' back-end operations at Brackley

Hamilton backing up the top 4

Tension on the pit wall

Rosberg celebrates by giving Bernie a big hug!

The title rivals congratulate one another

3 WDC champions on the podium, with 8 titles between them!

[asr245]

A very interesting race, thanks to Hamilton! What would have been a routine Merc 1-2 & Rosberg's title was made exciting enough to keep glued to the screen.

As a team boss though, I would be breathing fire on LH. That was a lot of risk. They could have lost maybe a car (due to collision), a Merc 1-2 or even the race.

For those who think LH lost because of unreliability, well, FM lost (while leading) at least 2 races in 2008 due to unreliability, still won more races than LH & still still lost the title. It's the points that matter. Everything else becomes fine print.

Originally Posted by nkrishnap

Wish Mercedes drivers drove this slow to make the season interesting

[Monolithic]

What a fun race! A very well deserved championship for Nico.

I've watched the entire race without missing a moment for the first time this season! I was so nervous something would happen to Rosberg and he would not win. Such a relief this had ended.

Edit:

Also I just noticed this. 34 years between Graham Hill's and Damon Hill's titles and the same between Keke Rosberg's and Nico's. So going by this Massa's son Felipinho will be almost a champion in 2042.

[SilentEngine]

Congrats to Nico! Well deserved in the end!

There will still be 5 WDCs on the grid next year!

[Makin Rulesz]

Congrats to Nico for winning the world championship 2016.
He weathered the desert storm, read tactics, and held on to his position, which is what mattered him to win the title.

It's shame on Mercedes to give orders when there were multiple statements from them prior to the race about letting the drivers race freely on track.
Now time to repeat last year's post race question, Which of you would enter the winter the happier driver…

[khoj]

The shame is on Lewis Hamilton as he tried to back Nico towards the Redbull & Ferrari that were behind.

The orders to him were to increase the pace so as not to allow either Verstappen or Vettel to get close & attempt to pass Nico. Not only did Lewis not do that but clearly told the team that "he was losing the championship and he did not care if he lost the race". Surely Lewis fans will argue that he was trying to win the championship by engineering a strategy to ensure that Nico did not get on the podium but then one wins F1 championships by going fast and not by devious means.

As I have always maintained LH may be a good driver but he is a poor sportsman and certainly no champion.

Originally Posted by Makin Rulesz

It's shame on Mercedes to give orders when there were multiple statements from them prior to the race about letting the drivers race freely on track.

[sourav9385]

Another year, and another constructor dominated the races from start to finish.

Earlier, it was Ferrari. Then came the Red Bull era. Now it's Mercedes that is dominant. Wonder what's in store for next year!

Sure, Rosberg won his first WDC. Good for him. Though I don't see this victory as a result of his talent alone. Behind the wheel, he certainly doesn't hold a candle to the likes of Hamilton, Alonso etc. I'd go on to say that Verstappen seems to have more raw talent than Rosberg! Kind of the likes of Senna & Schumacher who had this uncanny ability to figure out where the grip would be, even when conditions were soaking wet! A true wet-weather master is the sign of pure talent. Which is exactly what Lewis, Alonso & now Verstappen are really amazing at. Rosberg's win, IMO, seems more due to utterly miserable mishaps that happened to the Bad-Luck-Brian of F1, Lewis. Had Lewis' engine not blown up in Malaysia, he would've won the 2016 WDC down pat

But hey, ultimately winning is winning & everything is fair in love & war. By hook or by crook. To the victor go the spoils. So here's looking forward to a more interesting and competitive season in 2017.

[shibujp]

What a race to miss!! Having had a personal commitment I had to switch off the race after the first 30 mins. But coming back I realised that I had just missed a nail biter.

Nico is world champion material what ever polls, votes and all that hungama might say. To deal with a team mate like Hamilton all bling, flash, in the spotlight, confrontational and using all his guiles to draw you out is never easy. Yet through it all he kept up his "one race at a time" strategy and saw it through. He refused to be drawn into playing Lewis' game which to me revealed great mental fortitude. And his qualifying performances showed his racecraft. Top notch stuff. Yes he had his weaknesses - non more glaring to me than his wet weather performances this year. But where it counted he delivered consistently. All champions play to their strengths - Lewis to his, Nico to his. Now with a WDC in the bag and the confidence boost that it provides, I hope he hones this approach to rip a couple of more titles off Lewis.

Lewis Hamilton throughout the week revealed his desperation not to let Nico have the title and the last tactic was backing his rival into the cars behind. He had nothing to lose - as a driver that has 3 WDCs in his kitty one or more doesn't make a difference. And chances are that he would have done up Rosberg, if Rosberg had raced him, given the state of mind he was in. And Rosberg racing him would mean potentially opening up the door cars behind given the race pace Lewis was dictating. He rightly refused to pay the game Lewis wanted him to.

As Toto Wolff once put it - LH needs an enemy - to me the choice of words make a difference - Wolff could have used "competitor" rather than "enemy". All this takes nothing away from the awesome bit of talent LH has. Sport is sometimes a mind game more than sheer skills and unfortunately for Lewis, Rosberg came up on top today.

I sincerely hope to see Rosberg win more WDCs rather than the solitary one that his father did. The sport needs champions like him just as it needs Lewis Hamiltons.

Looking forward to 2017. Bigger tyres, more power!!
Drive on,
Shibu.

[ecenandu]

Originally Posted by khoj

As I have always maintained LH may be a good driver but he is a poor sportsman and certainly no champion.

So who is a 'Champion'?

Senna and Shumi, whom most of the people now consider as 'champions' also had certain dirty tricks up their sleeves.

Nico has so far been a team player, I agree, but I think we will see a different Nico next year having won his maiden world title this year.

[jfxavier]

2016 finally done and dusted.
A new WDC this year, making the total number of champs on the grid 6 again next year.

I see the season gone by this way.

• Reliability issues with the Merc. PU cost Lewis the title. Means Merc was running the PU in almost full potential at least on some tracks to cover for the advancing RedBulls.
• Ferrari again failed to live up to their and their fans expectations with regards to their development through the season.
• Although Max rose through the ranks in RBR family and also gained the maximum fans through the year, Ricciardo had it under control through the season. He came across as a mature, fast and reliable racer.
• McLaren progressed further up the grid in 2016 and hopefully will challenge at the front in 2017. Honda by and large seems to have taken care of their reliability woes, and the scrapping of tokens for 2017 should see them gaining on the performance front as well.
• I have had my eyes firmly set on 2017 for while now, mostly due to the new aero rules and the scrapping of tokens, which I hope will bring a change in the pecking order.
• From what I have seen so far, the "pay drivers" syndrome has not gone away from F1. Hopefully the new management will do something to re-distribute the incomes in a more fair manner to get the small teams less reliant on the money that drivers bring.
• Of course, a new precedent has been set as to what is acceptable with regards to backing up your team mate against rivals coming from behind

[ajmat]

A well deserved win for Nico. Bad luck, mechanical problems - whatever, the win was fair and square. However, I admire Lewis's tactic of getting Vettel and Verstappen to snap at Nico's heels. There was no other strategy and also would help Lewis maintain his tyres and keep some reserve.
ío

Originally Posted by TorqueyTechie

Drama drama and more drama but finally Rosberg wins his first championship! Not sure if Hamilton really had some issues or was he deliberately trying to slow down the pace and create pressure on Rosberg. Was funny to listen to the radio between the mercedes drivers and the team.

Nico should have not expected Mercedes to dictate team orders in my opinion. That really gets Lewis's goat!

[mayankk]

Rosberg's consistency pays off. A new champion!!
Gutted about Button, though.

Originally Posted by khoj

The shame is on Lewis Hamilton as he tried to back Nico towards the Redbull & Ferrari that were behind.

As I have always maintained LH may be a good driver but he is a poor sportsman and certainly no champion.

Originally Posted by shibujp

Lewis Hamilton throughout the week revealed his desperation not to let Nico have the title and the last tactic was backing his rival into the cars behind.

Sorry, but Lewis was not trying to DENY Nico a championship. He was trying to WIN his own. It is still better than crashing into your rival, I believe.
This is a standard tactic to back your rival into traffic. If you find this "unsportsman like", then you only have to look at seasons from the days of senna, hill and schumacher to see how timid that is compared to what used to happen.