Hamilton revealed Mercedes’ weak link

I've said it before and I'll say it again because the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix proved it: the Mercedes team management doesn't really manage. The reaction to Lewis Hamilton's tactics in the race made little sense.

You can't fault what the team has achieved over the past three years, but from a management perspective it's fortunate the car has been so fast. If there was another squad properly biting at Mercedes' heels it could really expose this weakness, and the team management would have to change the way it goes about things.

There was never any chance that Hamilton would not win the race. He was very much circulating with the cruise control on to try to give Nico Rosberg something to think about. To win the championship, Hamilton needed Rosberg to make a mistake, get involved with a Ferrari or a Red Bull or hit reliability problems, so he played the hand he had exactly as he should have done.

All's fair in love and war - and Formula 1 - and there's no doubt that had Hamilton been under serious threat from Sebastian Vettel, he would have had him covered. So I don't believe the Mercedes victory was ever really in doubt.

So for the Mercedes management to attempt to interfere and tell Hamilton to speed up shows how naive those at the top of the team really are.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner was absolutely right to point that out. In that position, were I on the pitwall I would have butted out and let them race as clean or as dirty as it was going to be - then we'd see the respect the drivers have for each other.

And it was all clean. Mercedes still got its one-two and the fans got to see a dramatic and tense race, with the result in question all the way to the last corner.

In the cooldown room after the race, you could see the emotion. Rosberg had been under the most stress and said it was the toughest race of his career. Don't underestimate how hard it will have been - he kept it all together and that's what true champions do. So well done Nico, and well done Lewis for trying everything he could in Abu Dhabi.

The season finale is the race that everyone remembers most through the winter, and it's the one where every driver most wants to outperform their team-mate. Maybe it makes them the go-to guy over the winter.

So who got the upper hand at Mercedes? Rosberg won the drivers' championship and is a real team player, and while Hamilton won the race he didn't do what the big boss requested. He was right to do so, but that could have an impact.

The question is, will that matter, or will management decide it's the right time to show him who's really the boss?

But this was an exceptional race. It's not often we see the drivers' championship go down to the wire - this was the 29th time it's happened since 1950. It's even rarer for it to be in question until the last lap of the last race, which is why Hamilton's success in 2008 remains so famous. While Rosberg stood up to that intense pressure, some will ask whether or not he deserved to win the championship.

Well, the simple answer is Rosberg ended the season with the most points. And that's what wins you championships.

I do believe he is a worthy champion, even though Hamilton has clearly had more bad luck with mechanical problems during the season. Rosberg has worked hard behind the scenes, going all the way back to when Mercedes was formed out of Brawn for 2010. He is unquestionably quick and works well with the engineers.

But talking of luck, there were some snapshots of this in the Abu Dhabi GP that have been overlooked. So let's see how it can influence the result by going back over the race.

Take the end of lap seven, when Hamilton pitted and the team performed a faultless pitstop. Kimi Raikkonen was also coming in, so Hamilton was held - costing at least a second. Had Hamilton gone faster in those first seven laps, he wouldn't have had to wait. And if he had driven a little slower, he would also have not had to wait.

Then Rosberg stopped and he had the same problem with Vettel, if anything losing more time than his team-mate. Had this scenario played out a little differently, Rosberg could conceivably have jumped Hamilton in the pits. That shows that sometimes the small things can really matter in deciding the result.

Ultimately, the race unfolded exactly as I expected. Hamilton had the pace to disappear into the distance, but he decided to hold back and keep Rosberg in his rear-view mirror. My biggest criticism is that he didn't do this enough in the early stages of the race.

If he had backed Rosberg up more, it might have caused frustration. The gap behind Rosberg was big enough for him to relax more than Hamilton will have really wanted him to.

Then there was the Max Verstappen factor. He was fighting back from the spin at the first corner, but he was in no mood to be Mr Nice Guy.

Rosberg followed him for 10 laps and, when Verstappen's super-soft tyres were crying enough, made his move. That was probably the point in the race where Rosberg was most on edge - I imagine he had more in his mouth than his tongue.

But again, this highlights how luck can contribute. Daniel Ricciardo started on super-softs, but he wasn't left out for a long first stint like Verstappen. Red Bull never gave his alternative strategy a chance, which I don't really understand.

Apparently, concerns over the flatspot from the first corner of the race and the danger of losing track position when Vettel made his first stop triggered Ricciardo's response, but it still makes no sense. It potentially also made life easier for Rosberg.

After the second round of pitstops, with Hamilton and Rosberg stopping on lap 28 and 29, we got into the serious stuff. Having been too generous early on, Hamilton decided to back Rosberg up more from this point.

The hope was someone would come to the rescue, and the super-softs on Vettel's Ferrari after his final stop on lap 37 made him into a rocketship and a threat. Obviously, Hamilton's pace made the Ferrari look quicker than it really was, but there was at least the pressure from behind.

But it wasn't quite enough - after all, Rosberg could afford to drop back one place. He just tried to stay out of trouble, and when Hamilton really started to back him up in the final stages, Rosberg started to get the benefit of DRS, which helped keep Vettel - whose tyres were by then past their sell-by date - at bay.

Hamilton asked those questions all the way to the end of the race, and Rosberg had an answer for all of them. Again, that proves Mercedes should have just kept quiet and let the pair of them get on with it. Ultimately, there was a world title at stake.

But everyone involved deserves huge credit. A German won the drivers' championship in a German car designed and built in Brackley, with an engine designed and built in Brixworth.

Well done to all involved - especially the drivers who made the final race so tense.