Red Bull’s triple World champion Max Verstappen wrapped up a year of unprecedented dominance with his record-extending 19th win in 22 races at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The pole-to-flag victory, for the fourth year in a row under the Yas Marina floodlights, left the 26-year-old alone in third place in Formula One’s all-time list of winners with a career 54.<\/p>\n
Only seven times champions Lewis Hamilton (103) and Michael Schumacher (91) have won more.<\/p>\n
Sergio Perez finished second on the road for Red Bull but a five second post-race penalty dropped the Mexican off the podium, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Mercedes’ George Russell.<\/p>\n
“It was an incredible season,” said Verstappen, who also became the first driver to lead 1,000 racing laps in a single championship and scored a record 575 points.<\/p>\n
“It was a bit emotional on the in-lap, it was the last time I was sitting in the car which has of course given me a lot,” he said. “It will be hard to do something similar again but we definitely enjoyed this year.”<\/p>\n
Mercedes ended their first winless season since 2011 as best of the rest behind runaway champions Red Bull, who scored a whopping 860 points to Mercedes’ 409 and Ferrari’s 406.<\/p>\n
McLaren secured fourth overall, 22 points clear of Aston Martin, with Lando Norris fifth and Australian rookie team mate Oscar Piastri sixth.<\/p>\n
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso finished seventh, winning a close battle with Leclerc, Norris and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz for fourth overall in the championship, with AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda eighth.<\/p>\n
Tsunoda led a race for the first time, for five laps after Verstappen and Leclerc pitted on 17 and 18 respectively, providing a nice farewell for retiring AlphaTauri team boss Franz Tost.<\/p>\n
The points were still not quite enough to overtake Williams in seventh place overall.<\/p>\n
Hamilton finished ninth and Canadian Lance Stroll took the final point for Aston Martin.<\/p>\n