Abu Dhabi - With Red Bull Racing having already claimed the Constructors Championship at the penultimate race itself, Sunday's Abu Dhabi Grand Prix not only crowned the Drivers' Champion but also decided two small battles in the Constructors' Championship.
McLaren-Mercedes and Ferrari were in the fight for the second place while lower down Williams and Force India were separated by just one point in their fight for the sixth position.
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished second and third respectively to Sebastian Vettel on Sunday and the 33 points they earned helped them push Ferrari to third in the Constructors' Championship.
Points haul
Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren Team Principal said: "We notched up 33 world championship points this evening, which is more than any other team scored today. That hefty points haul more than consolidated our second position in the constructors' world championship and indeed lifted us to a comfortable 58 points clear of our friends at Ferrari, who, as is so often the case, took the battle to us again this year."
After a closely-fought battle, Williams finished sixth to edge out Force India, with neither team having scored in Abu Dhabi on Sunday.
"To finish 12th and 16th from seventh and 15th is not something to be pleased about," Patrick Head, Williams' director of Engineering, said. "Ultimately, of the various goals for the weekend, the main one was to finish ahead of Force India and retain sixth in the championship, which we achieved."
Though Force India lost the sixth position to Williams, Dr Vijay Mallya, Chairman and Team Principal was optimistic.
"Sixty-eight points is something I, and the whole team, can take great personal pride in. When we bought the team we scored zero points the first year, then 13 last year and now more than five times that in 2010." (M. Satya Narayan)
Source: http://gulfnews.com