Rosberg wins world title as Hamilton wins race
Hamilton disobeys team orders to speed up, backing Rosberg into rivals
Button, Kvyat, Bottas & Magnussen, Sainz out
Reliability has played a significant part in the title battle, but those gremlins have kept away in recent races. Will they rear their heads today?
Image source, BBC SportFeeling the nerves? We'd love to know where you are following today's race from and what your title-deciding race preparations are. At the race? Taken a radio to the garage locking yourself away from the world for a couple of hours to follow it?
Send us pictures of where you are following the race from, and tell us what your race-following set up is like via #bbcf1.
Image source, .James Hunt (pictured) was three points behind Niki Lauda going into the final race when he won the title in 1976
In the history of Formula 1, 40% of the final race title deciders have been won by a driver not leading the championship going into the final race.
Wonder how Lewis Hamilton feels about those odds?
Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer in Abu Dhabi
Image source, Getty ImagesNico Rosberg was standing in the official interview pen with BBC Sport’s Tom Clarkson when the GP2 feature race started on Saturday evening. The driver in second place on the grid made a terrible start and lost places.
Rosberg turned to Tom and said: “I hope that doesn’t happen to me!” Rosberg has insisted he is treating this weekend just like any other race - a mantra he has been repeating consistently since the third grand prix of the season in China. But obviously it isn’t just any other race. And, for all his public utterances, he has unsurprisingly seemed tenser than normal, his answers even more restricted then usual. He has driven, he said on Saturday and most would agree, the “best season” of his career. It looks like it will be enough. But as Fernando Alonso pointed out, from his own bitter experience, on Saturday: “The races are always a little bit unpredictable here and things can happen with the title fight.”
Image source, BBC Sport
Image source, .
Image source, Getty ImagesHello!
So here we are. After the longest season in Formula 1 history, the world championship will be decided at the season finale.
It is Nico Rosberg who has one hand on the trophy. All he needs to do is finish on the podium and the title will be his.
But Lewis Hamilton is on pole, and has been in sensational form in the last few races. He won't go down without a fight.
Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer in Abu Dhabi
Lewis Hamilton starts the race that could lead to one of the most painful moments of his life - his team-mate Nico Rosberg, who he regards as inferior driver, taking the world championship - from pole position.
Hamilton set that as his target before arriving in the United Arab Emirates, so much so that when he did practice starts through the weekend he did them from nowhere else, and he completed it with a performance in qualifying that he said was “as good” as any he has done all season.
But the next task is much, much harder. How does he make up more than 12 points on Rosberg in a race they both start from the front row in the fastest car in the field?
Whether it is James Hunt and Niki Lauda going head to head in 1976...
Image source, Rex Features...Nelson Piquet, Alain Prost and Nigel Mansell battling it out in 1986...
Image source, Rex Features...or Lewis Hamilton snatching the title from under Felipe Massa's nose in 2008...
Image source, Getty Images... there's nothing quite like the drama of a final-race title decider.
Maybe it's the element of the unknown, the potential for drama and the unexpected, or maybe its just the fact that one way or another, someone will end the race as world champion.
For the 21st time in the history of Formula 1, the season has gone down to the wire and in just a few short hours we'll be celebrating either a new name on the list of world champions, or one of the greatest title turnarounds in the sport's history.
Bring it on.
Image source, Getty Images