Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton is your 2014 F1 champion
Ryan Joseph Ramos November 23, 2014
In the end, the epic battle to decide who will be the ultimate Formula 1 driver for the 2014 season simply did not materialize. There would be no showdown, no gut-wrenching finish, as Nico Rosberg encountered technical problems at the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which meant that Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton had a clear path to victory.
Hamilton took the race win and the driver’s championship, which was his to lose in the first place with a 17-point lead entering the event. This made Hamilton the first Mercedes team driver to claim an F1 title since Juan Manuel Fangio did so back in 1955. Hamilton also became the fourth British double-champion in history, and the first since Sir Jackie Stewart achieved the feat 43 years ago.
As the last race had double points at stake, Hamilton was able to pad his lead to 67 points at the end (384 points to 317), with Rosberg finishing outside of the points in 14th place. Rosberg, admirably, still drove his car all the way to the end of the race even when the technical failures that hobbled his car would have been justification enough to retire in an unwinnable race. It would be a valiant effort for this season’s title runner-up.
Rosberg congratulated Hamilton over the team radio and hugged it out with his teammate before Hamilton headed over to the podium, where he was joined by Williams teammates Felipe Massa, who finished second at just 2.5 seconds behind Hamilton, and Valtteri Bottas, who went third.
The Red Bulls of Daniel Ricciardo and Sebastian Vettel started all the way from the back of the grid after the front wings on their cars were found to flex under an aerodynamic load, which violates the rules. Still, they were able to climb into the points, with Ricciardo finishing in fourth place and Vettel in eighth. Jenson Button would finish fifth in what is probably the last race for the British driver.
The Force India cars of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez went sixth and seventh, respectively. The Ferrari drivers rounded out the top 10, with Fernando Alonso finishing ninth and Kimi Raikkonen tenth.
Overall, the Mercedes team finished with 16 wins out of the 19 races. That tally is backstopped by 31 podium finishes and 18 pole positions, in what was a season-long dominance thanks to all the work the constructor put in when it came to the new power units required for F1 competition.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Rosberg would bounce back for the 2015 season, and if Hamilton can keep his winning form. Surely, the other power unit providers have been hard at work developing a more competitive engine for next season, and other teams have made roster changes that could have a huge impact on the competition. Ferrari, for example, have enlisted three-time world champion Vettel to replace Alonso.
Thanks for staying with us here at BenzInsider for the 2014 Formula One season. Rest assured that we will bring you Mercedes F1 news as it happens through the offseason and into the next one.
