Red Bull's Max Verstappen won Sunday's Formula 1 season finale at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, UAE to claim a record-extending 15th victory of the 2022 Formula 1 season. The World Championship is the second for the Belgian-Dutch driver having secured his first World Championship the previous season.

"It has been a great team effort, especially after our tough start to the year, to turn it around like that, I would have never imagined that, like nobody in the team," said Verstappen.

Verstappen retired from two of the first three races of the 2022 Formula 1 season, giving Ferrari rival, Charles Leclerc, an early 46 point lead.

In just five seasons and 163 starts the 25 year old Red Bull driver has accumulated 35 victories and 77 podium appearances which ranks him sixth on the all-time win list.

"He is an incredible driver," 2016 world champion Rosberg told Sky Sports F1's Any Driven Monday. "I think it's easy to say even now that's he's going to be one of the best of all time, if you look at the statistics he actually even is now."

Scuderia Ferrari came to Yas Marina with two outstanding matters to settle, namely finishing second in both the Constructors' and the Drivers' championships.

The missions were successfully completed thanks to a strong performance from Charles Leclerc, who finished second in today's race ahead of Sergio Perez, his only rival for the runner-up spot in the 2022 drivers points.

"Second place in the Constructors' and Drivers' championships is down to all the hard work over the course of the season," said Mattia Binotto, Ferrari Team Principal & Managing Director. "This has been an important year, in which we had set ourselves the goal of getting back to being competitive and, in that, we have succeeded."

Starting in P3, one position behind Perez, Leclerc's tyres were degrading less than expected and as Perez pitted early, the team decided to go for a one-stop strategy for the Monegasque, which meant the Perez found himself having to chase Leclerc throughout the remainder of the Grand Prix.

Charles ran at a constant enough pace to look after his Hard tyres; keeping ahead of Perez, who never got close enough to try and pass.

"It was a good race. We executed it perfectly and, as we didn't have the pure pace to beat our competitors, put pressure on them in the key moments, which paid off," said Leclerc.

Race winner Max Verstappen also used a one-stop strategy while the remaining top 5 finishers, Perez-Sainz-Russell, opted for a two-stop, medium-hard-hard, strategy.

"Today we really didn't perform well. We did all the mistakes we could possibly have made tonight: we didn't have the pace, one driver breaking down and the other one running out of tyres - it's a good summary of the challenges this season for us," said Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff.

"This could have almost been a memorable race, but we probably got more wrong than right today," said a dejected George Russell. "We didn't have the pace this weekend and tried as hard as we could, but this was actually one of the toughest race of the season for us."

"It's a shame how the race panned out for me - I had a strong start fighting Carlos, but with the long first pit-stop and the five-second penalty meant the race was over for me," added Russell.

"We cooked the tyres in the first few laps because we attacked. The car seemed strong at the start, but then the front right just gave out and maybe that's something we should've predicted," explained Wolff.

Russell's teammate, Lewis Hamilton, running fourth, had to retire his car on lap 55 of 58, owing to a loss in hydraulic pressure and subsequent failure with loss of gearshift.

The 2022 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix also marked the end of four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel's Formula One career as a full-time driver.

Vettel holds the record for being the youngest World Champion in Formula One. He also has the third-most race victories (53) and podium finishes (122), and fourth-most pole positions (57).

In 2022, Vettel had 11 top ten finishes for Aston Martin.

"Thank you for the support. Thank you for the messages, the letters and all the love in general. I will miss that. But it's been an absolute joy throughout my career, so thank you," was Vettel's heartfelt message to his fans from Parc Ferme. "Thank you."

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RESULTS 
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 Pos	Driver		Team		Time		Gap

1	Verstappen	Red Bull	58	1h 27:45.914
2	Leclerc		Ferrari		58	+ 0:08.771
3	Perez		Red Bull	58	+ 0:10.093
4	Sainz		Ferrari		58	+ 0:24.892
5	Russell		Mercedes	58	+ 0:35.888
6	Norris		McLaren		58	+ 0:56.234
7	Ocon		Alpine		58	+ 0:57.240
8	Stroll		Aston Martin	58	+ 1:16.931
9	Ricciardo	McLaren		58	+ 1:23.268
10	Vettel		Aston Martin	58	+ 1:23.898
11	Tsunoda		AlphaTauri	58	+ 1:29.371
12	Zhou		Alfa Romeo	57	+ 1 Lap
13	Albon		Williams	57	+ 1 Lap
14	Gasly		AlphaTauri	57	+ 1 Lap
15	Bottas		Alfa Romeo	57	+ 1 Lap
16	Schumacher	Haas		57	+ 1 Lap
17	Magnussen	Haas		57	+ 1 Lap
18	Hamilton	Mercedes	55	+ 3 Laps
19	Latifi		Williams	55	+ 3 Laps
	Alonso		Alpine		27	Water Leak

Fastest Lap:i Norris (McLaren) 1:28.391 (Lap 44)

(images provided by Aston Martin F1 Media)