Vettel takes title, Alonso fumes at error

ABU DHABI, (Reuters) – Germany’s Sebastian Vettel  sobbed with joy at becoming Formula One’s youngest champion and  Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso shook his fist as his title hopes  disappeared into the desert on Sunday.

The 23-year-old Red Bull driver led from pole to chequered  flag under the Yas Marina floodlights to chalk up his fifth win  of the season.

Alonso, the pre-race favourite for a third title, struggled  home seventh after his team made the wrong call on strategy and  left him following Renault’s Russian rookie Vitaly Petrov for 40  agonising laps.

Vettel, adding the drivers’ crown to the constructors’  championship his team won the previous weekend in Brazil,  finished with 256 points to Alonso’s 252 after winning in Abu  Dhabi for the second year in a row.

“We have only led this championship once and when it  mattered. I am speechless,” said the youngster.

He had started the day 15 points behind Alonso, with much of  the build-up dominated by speculation about whether he would  allow Australian team mate Mark Webber to pass for the title.

In the end, Webber finished eighth and was third overall.

“Thank you boys, unbelievable,” gasped Vettel over the team  radio, the tears flowing behind the visor after he took the  chequered flag.

Team principal Christian Horner and owner Dietrich  Mateschitz, bursting with pride, spared him no emotion.

“You are the world champion. Enjoy it. You are the man,”  Horner bellowed from the pit wall.

“I love you,” answered Vettel.

Petrov unpassable
Alonso, wished good luck by King Juan Carlos on the starting  grid, paid the price for an early pitstop that dropped him to  13th.

“Afterwards it was really clear it was a mistake,” said  Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali, without saying who had  made the call.

“What I feel inside is a lot of pain…for sure it was the  worst race of the year for us and that’s why it hits you very  hard in the head.”

Vettel, asked jokingly whether he might be Petrov’s main  sponsor next year, thanked the Russian, whose future in the  sport remains uncertain.

Webber had been the first of the contenders to pit,  triggering Alonso’s fateful decision to follow him in to keep  him covered, and he also became bogged down in traffic.

“He’s down really, to be honest with you,” Webber’s father  Alan told Reuters, watching from a distance as team members  partied away.

“He fired the arrow and he was aiming for the target way up  there and he missed the target and that’s taking a long time to  come back down to earth.”

Hamilton second
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, the previous youngest champion who  had to win in Abu Dhabi to have any hope of a second title,  finished second on the night with team mate and outgoing world  champion Jenson Button third.

While Vettel celebrated, seven-times world champion Michael  Schumacher’s comeback season ended with a smash on the opening  lap when his Mercedes spun and was speared by Force India’s  Italian Vitantonio Liuzzi.

The great, who last stood on the podium as a Ferrari driver  in 2006 and is the only other driver to have won the title for  Germany, was fortunate to escape serious injury as the car  ploughed into the stationary Mercedes and rode up over the  airbox just behind Schumacher’s head.

The safety car was then deployed for four laps.