10 Things You Might Have Missed From Last Weekend’s Motorsport Action

In another busy weekend of motorsport - which included Formula 1, GP2 and Formula E - here are 10 things for you to catch up on:

1. An unusual issue

Valtteri Bottas suffered an unusual problem mid-way through first practice for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and his team-mate Felipe Massa almost suffered the same thing. His entire sidepod bodywork panel flew off during the session, while at the same time Massa’s was coming loose.

2. Watch out!

Esteban Gutierrez’s final F1 race weekend for Sauber didn’t get off to the best start at the Yas Marina Circuit, after he ran over one of his pit crew members in practice. Awkward.

3. Dat start

Lewis Hamilton secured the F1 title last weekend at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. His race got going in fine style, with what he believes to be the best start of his career.

4. Up in flames

The Lotus pit crew were caught on camera laughing as Pastor Maldonado’s car went up in flames following an engine failure, showing what a horrible season it has been for Lotus.

5. Celebrate

Following Hamilton’s championship victory, Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff was asked how the team was going to celebrate. “We’re taking over a nightclub tonight and we’re going to take it to pieces,” was his reply.

6. Goodbyes

There were a number of drivers saying goodbye to their current F1 teams, ahead of the 2015 season. Fernando Alonso raced with a helmet signed by the Ferrari crew on his last weekend with the Scuderia.

Sebastian Vettel’s design was in the Red Bull colours, with the word “danke” (German for thank you) featured on the top. Red Bull Racing also left a message on the floor of his garage and held out a pit board at the finish line saying thank you and showing some of the statistics from his time at the team. It was the end of an era for both drivers.

7. Another champion crowned

The 2014 GP3 championship was secured in strange style at the Yas Marina Circuit on Friday. Alex Lynn went into the qualifying session with a 47-point lead over Dean Stoneman, with a maximum of 48 points available.

Stoneman needed to take pole (and the extra four points), win the two races and set the fastest lap in both, with Lynn failing to score, to take the title. He failed to finish fastest in qualifying; hence Lynn was crowned champion before the racing had even started.

8. Vandoorne and Coletti take GP2 wins

The 2014 GP2 season came to a close in Abu Dhabi, with two exciting races at the Yas Marina Circuit. Stoffel Vandoorne dominated the feature race, finishing 12 seconds ahead of GP2 champion Jolyon Palmer and Mitch Evans.

Stefano Coletti signed off a rather inconsistent year – and likely his final season in GP2 – with a victory in the sprint race. He had a lightning start from second and was unchallenged to the chequered flag, finishing well clear of Felipe Nasr and Arthur Pic. Sixth for Vandoorne helped him to secure second in the 2014 standings.

9. Stoneman and Yelloly victorious in GP3

The 2014 GP3 season also finished in Abu Dhabi, with Stoneman taking the race one win after falling out of contention for the title in qualifying. In his second weekend driving for Koiranen GP, he managed to just hold off pole-sitter Marvin Kirchhofer to take the chequered flag in first place.

Eighth place in the opening event gave Nick Yelloly pole for the second race. He lost the lead to Patric Niederhauser at the start, with the Swiss driver dominating to win by five seconds. However, following FIA investigations, he was later excluded as his car breached the technical regulations, so Yelloly was handed first place.

A theme is unfortunately starting to develop in Formula E. Following Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost’s dramatic final lap crash in Beijing, last weekend saw Bruno Senna crash heavily with just a few corners of the Putrajaya ePrix to go. His car was completely destroyed, but fortunately he was okay.