It’s Driver Consistency for the final time in 2009 – who was the shining star under the lights in Abu Dhabi?
Race Recap
In contrast to the last race, this was dull, dull, dull
Here are some pics, which considering this was a night race, the selection was not that great today:
Sutil going so fast he’s all blurry – must be a camera effect then
(PicApp.com)
Mark Webber and the hotel with the coloured lights that is in every photo (PicApp.com)
Alonso toiled for the last time in a Renault today – hoping for better things from Ferrari (PicApp.com)
Webber takes 2nd to make it a season ending 1-2 for Red Bull (PicApp.com)
I have already covered the main points in my Fantasy Racers post, and there isn’t much else to add, other than the fact that Alguersuari got confused by the similar liveries of Red Bull and Toro Rosso and drove into the Red Bull pit garage by accident on his stop, forcing him to be sent out without fuel and running out before making it back to the pits again.
Also, Hamilton retired due to brake problems in the right rear which he had been having all race. This was a shame, because judging by his performance all weekend, he could have walked this race. I have been told that it is his first ‘mechanical’ retirement so far, too.
But the race was awfully dull. Yes, the venue is excellent, and it’s probably a good track (even for a Tilke-Drome), but the fact is that the Overtaking Working Group massively failed in their task to improve the racing so that cars would not be affected by the dirty air. There was little overtaking as it was just too difficult – in fact, you will see later that Button was much faster than Webber, but just could not get past him.
And Button has been one of the best over takers this year!
But I will leave it to Lukeh to summarise the Grand Prix, which he did in this comment on Sidepodcast earlier:
“One of the highlights was when the hotel lit up in orange, a stark contrast to the dullness being produced on track…
”
Couldn’t have put it better myself, mate!
Driver Consistency
So for the last time in 2009, let’s look at the lap times to find out how consistent each driver was. If you need more info on my calculation methods then please refer to my post on Driver Consistency Explained.

The first graph usually follows the race classification closely, with a few exceptions. Button (third) is marginally faster than Webber (second), and Kovalainen (eleventh) was a little quicker than Kubica (tenth). Hamilton’s pace would have put him in thirteenth place.
How about when we remove the pit stops? Who is the fastest and most consistent now?

With just the lap times and no pit stops involved, we can see that Hamilton had the pace to finish sixth – even with the problems he had. Button is still faster than Webber, Kobayashi drop and the other one-stoppers drop back, because the time saved by taking one less pit stop is balanced out by the penalty of carrying extra fuel per lap.
Therefore, we can see that for drivers starting higher than tenth and if the pace of the driver is decent, then it is worth taking a gamble and putting a driver on a one-stop strategy. However, this is especially risky at Abu Dhabi, because the race started at Dusk and finished at night. This meant that the temperature dropped significantly, which means that the track characteristics would have changed more than in other races. To use a NASCAR analogy, when they have similar day/night races, they say the track ‘tightens up’ (which I think means that the cars understeer more) and they require constant setup changes during the race.
This means that there was a risk of being caught out with the wrong setup or the wrong tyres at some point, which may have required the driver to pit again and lose the time advantage gained by only stopping once. However, this didn’t seem to happen in the Grand Prix, so the one-stoppers managed to jump a few places
Anyway, there will be less reason to discuss this next year as refuelling has been banned. Tyre stops are still allowed, but these will be mega short and will not factor so much into the race strategy. While on paper this sounds great, because drivers will be forced to overtake on the track, this may end up making the races a procession, because if the aero rules are unchanged, then the drivers will end up being stuck behind the others unable to overtake each other. One would hope that this doesn’t end up happening this year, but after today I can’t say I am optimistic
Conclusions
What can we conclude today? Well, as we said before the race was not very entertaining. However. the 2009 season is now over. We have a new world champion, we have had new winners this year, we have had loads of ups and downs, heartbreak and heart-warming stories, scandal, political intrigue and even some on-track action
It’s been a long and eventful season and to be honest, it’s good that it is over – because it will be nice to have a little break to recharge the batteries. It has been great fun writing this blog for you guys and I hope that you have found it enjoyable and useful.
But I am not going anywhere! To keep things going during the off-season, there will be loads of special posts covering topics that look at the season from a different angle or were too large a project to take on during the season. So if you have any ideas on what you want me to look at, then please let me know
Otherwise, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the race today… but please keep it clean…