How Rosberg dodged Hamilton's minefield

Lewis Hamilton came into the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix saying all he wanted to focus on was taking pole position and winning the final Formula 1 race of 2016.

But of course he knew that alone wouldn't be enough. He also needed two cars to finish between him and title rival Nico Rosberg in order to steal the championship away at the end of a personally arduous season.

Hamilton has seemingly made peace with the fact poor reliability cost him the chance to dictate the terms of this season's F1 title fight, and he headed into the finale suggesting all he would do is what he does best - drive faster than everyone else.

"If I'm out ahead I want to be generally as far ahead as possible," Hamilton said. "It's more of an achievement than backing up your team-mate."

Some suggested Hamilton would be better served to do just that - win the race by going slow, to allow an opportunity for two cars to force their way ahead of Rosberg, and therefore swing the points battle decisively back in Hamilton's favour.

Hamilton rejected this suggestion, calling the tactic impractical, but that was never likely to settle the matter in a world where mind games often rule the roost. The question remained unanswered in reality - just how would Hamilton approach his seemingly impossible mission?

Hamilton refused to state which path he would choose after topping free practice on Friday, simply saying his sole focus remained on securing pole, to give him the best opportunity to dictate terms in the race.

After securing that pole position, Hamilton continued to keep his cards close to his chest, refusing even to let Mercedes know what strategy he might employ in his efforts to overturn Rosberg's 12-point advantage in the title battle.

"We weren't quite sure which direction he'd go - whether he'd go flat out, or chose the other way, but we calculated it," said Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

"As it was a highly probable scenario, there was lots of discussion around it. It was clear it was one of the possible ways for Lewis to win the championship - if Nico could come under threat from behind, and that's exactly what happened so it didn't come as a surprise."

In fact, Hamilton's intentions became apparent from a very early stage in this race. Having converted pole into a lead with minimal fuss, ordinarily you would expect Hamilton to drive off into the distance, building a gap of several seconds to protect himself from attack at the first round of pitstops.

But instead of trying to put himself "as far ahead as possible", Hamilton barely broke a sweat through the short first stint on ultra-soft tyres, allowing the chasing pack - led by Kimi Raikkonen's fast-starting Ferrari - to remain in contention.

Hamilton enjoyed the strategic advantage of stopping first, which left Rosberg more vulnerable in terms of dropping into traffic, or potentially being jumped in the pits by Raikkonen's Ferrari, or Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull, which was expected to do a longer first stint on the super-soft compound.

Rosberg's vulnerability only increased when Mercedes was forced to delay his release from his first stop on lap eight of 55, to avoid compromising the incoming Ferrari of Sebastian Vettel.

But Raikkonen's in-lap was ultimately too slow to allow him to get ahead of Rosberg, despite making an earlier stop, while Red Bull called Ricciardo in (to his bemusement) before he could really stretch the Red Bull's legs.

"We weren't convinced the super-softs were going to have the longevity they had," explained Red Bull boss Christian Horner. "Daniel picked up a flatspot on the first lap into Turn 1, and we were also looking at the pace Sebastian had on the out-lap, and what we didn't want to do was concede a place to Sebastian.

"It wasn't totally clear that Daniel would be able to pull away and clear that group, even a one-stop wasn't in our thinking at that point."

Had Red Bull left Ricciardo out it would have made him a factor on Hamilton's chessboard, but as it was Ricciardo remained stuck behind Raikkonen's Ferrari, while Ricciardo's Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen became Rosberg's first real headache.

Verstappen spun to the back of the pack on the first lap, after a slow start from sixth on the grid and then light contact with Nico Hulkenberg's Force India through the first turn.

He picked his way through the slower cars relatively easily, and was already back up to 10th before Hamilton triggered the first round of stops on lap seven. When those had shaken out, Verstappen found himself running between the two Mercedes in second place.

"I was not convinced [the tyres would last]," Verstappen said. "But if you feel the tyres are holding on pretty well... At one point I said to the team, 'guys, don't box me I want to go as long as I can' and of course that means you are trying to do a one-stop."

Verstappen's pedestrian pace as he tried to eke out his tyre life meant Rosberg found himself bottled up behind the Red Bull, with Raikkonen, Ricciardo and Vettel lurking in his mirrors.

This looked to be a potentially fantastic scenario for Hamilton - Rosberg paddling in a sea of Ferrari and Red Bull sharks - but a couple of key developments helped Rosberg escape Hamilton's trap.

Firstly Raikkonen struggled for speed on the soft compound tyre, wearing out the front right in particular, which dropped him back from Rosberg and into the clutches of Ricciardo, who botched an overtaking attempt into Turn 11 on lap 19.

This brought Rosberg some valuable breathing space as Mercedes told him it was now "critical" he find his way past Verstappen and back into second spot.

Rosberg complied, diving inside Verstappen at Turn 8 on lap 20 and almost colliding with the Red Bull as it hung on around the outside in a desperate effort to stay ahead.

Rosberg really showed his mettle here, flirting with disaster but not marrying it. He tightened his own line, straightened up for the exit onto the second back straight, and blasted his way past the Red Bull.

It was risky stuff with so much at stake, but Rosberg held his nerve impressively.

"That was a not a nice thing to do," said Rosberg. "'It's critical to pass Verstappen' - that's not a nice thing to hear, that was really bad, a horrible feeling."

Verstappen pitted on the next lap, and not long after Ricciardo then Raikkonen were in too. Mercedes waited until laps 28 and 29 before bringing the title challengers in for their final pitstops, which left Vettel's longer running Ferrari leading.

Again Hamilton refused to unleash the potential of his Mercedes, leading his team to question his lack of pace. Hamilton remained silent, as he tried yet again to lay a trap for Rosberg.

Despite driving a quicker car on fresher tyres, Hamilton only made slight inroads into Vettel's advantage, still trailing by more than three seconds when the Ferrari eventually dived for the pits to make its final stop at the end of lap 37.

Vettel emerged sixth, trailing Hamilton by 18.659s with 18 laps to run. He immediately began lapping almost 2s faster than Hamilton - no surprise given Hamilton's desire to back Rosberg into trouble.

Mercedes urged Hamilton to up his pace, asking for high 1m44s laps (instead of the late-1m45s Hamilton was producing consistently) to ward off the "imminent threat" that Vettel might win the race.

"At that stage it looked like Sebastian would win the race, and there was probably two seconds, a second and a half, more pace in the car," explained Wolff. "We felt we would not lose the race if we were to increase the pace.

"He had two choices - either to disappear off into the distance and show that he's the quickest guy on the planet, and win the race irrespective of what's happening behind him, or decide the other way and bunch them up behind him."

Hamilton quite clearly chose the second option, and as the race neared its conclusion Rosberg began complaining Hamilton was driving too slowly.

Of course Rosberg was perfectly entitled to try to pass Hamilton himself, and win the championship by winning the race, but he felt Hamilton was managing the race too well from the front, leaving him pincered from each end.

"I was trying at times but Lewis was doing it really well," Rosberg said. "He pushed flat-out for Turn 21 all the way to the first sector, and then halfway through the second sector. And that's where you overtake.

"I couldn't get close enough. He has the same car as me. Through the fast corners there's no way for me to get close enough. Then he backed off in the next part where I couldn't overtake."

Meanwhile, Vettel was making rapid progress on his fresher super-soft tyres, passing team-mate Raikkonen with ease on lap 41, and drafting past Ricciardo's Red Bull into fourth place on lap 46.

With nine to go Vettel was less than 6.5s off the lead, with only one more car between his and Rosberg's...

Mercedes told Hamilton he needed to up his pace to 1m45.1s in order to guarantee victory, but the leader refused to comply, suggesting his team should simply leave him alone to race as he saw fit. Mercedes even tried its nuclear option, deploying technical chief Paddy Lowe on the radio to urge Hamilton to reconsider his tactics.

"It was just to make it totally clear to him there was no bullshit to that point," Lowe explained. "There was a proper threat from Vettel.

"The objective for the team is to win the race, [and] ideally come second with the other car. We were very explicit about that. It's the same objective as the other 20 races. We don't distort our objectives in the context of the drivers' championship.

"We had some frustrations - we'd rather have some gap to mitigate against any possible risks. For whatever reason Lewis didn't show that pace."

Lowe's calls fell on deaf ears, with Hamilton fully aware that closing out a Mercedes one-two would leave him defeated in the ultimate battle.

"I don't know why they didn't just let us race," said Hamilton. "There was never a moment where I felt I was going to lose the race.

"I generally never try to do anything to harm the team or the brand or anything like that, but we've won the constructors' championship so it was down to me and Nico.

"I don't think I did anything dangerous. I don't feel I did anything unfair. We're fighting for a championship - I was in the lead, I control the pace. That's the rules."

Rosberg looked in real danger of losing second to Vettel as this race reached its denouement, but he was helped by the Ferrari failing in its first attempt to pass Verstappen's Red Bull, Vettel correcting a small slide coming out of Turn 9 on lap 50, which helped protect Verstappen from attack on the second back straight.

"Daniel was fairly straightforward to pass," Vettel explained. "But when I arrived behind Max the problem is you have car after car and you begin to slide, so my tyres got worse."

Vettel got the job done on the next lap, leaving him another four to attack Rosberg, and maybe bring Verstappen with him. Both would need to pass to prevent Rosberg winning the championship, but ultimately neither could.

Verstappen felt he was struggling "a lot" on the straights, while Vettel reckoned a combination of his burned-up tyres and Mercedes' formidable straightline speed prevented him mounting a proper challenge.

"I tried everything but they were very, very quick down the straights," said Vettel. "The second straight was the spot I was having a look, but Nico defended well and closed the inside so I couldn't really go anywhere.

"I couldn't try something really stupid because Lewis was just ahead - if I really dived down the inside or outside I have a risk of hitting Lewis. The last laps were intense."

They certainly were for Rosberg, who stood firm under immense pressure from all sides to clinch his maiden world championship - 34 years after his father Keke conquered F1.

"I wanted to try and hold onto second because once I dropped one, who knows what kind of mess they are going to get into in front," Rosberg said. "Verstappen was right behind - Verstappen right behind at the end, that was not something I wanted..."

Ultimately, the way Hamilton actually went about winning the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix proved his pre-race talk was nothing more than an attempt to play mind games with Rosberg, in hope of destabilising him.

Hamilton may yet face consequences for the "precedent" his defiance of Mercedes' repeated instructions to speed up set according to Wolff.

But Mercedes said it would not interfere in the title battle ahead of this race, yet ended up trying to do exactly that - even if its intentions were simply to guarantee a one-two result for the team.

No one can blame Hamilton for doing what he did. He was the rank outsider to win the championship, he needed at least two cars to finish between him and Rosberg to turn the title fight on its head; he gave it his best shot.

Ultimately the others weren't quite quick enough to do Hamilton the favour he needed, while Rosberg showed a champion's resilience to cling on with everything at stake in the toughest race of his career.