Today in Motorsport History, November 4: Räikkönen Won the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as Vettel Charged From the Pit Lane
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Kimi Räikkönen waited more than three years between Formula 1 victories, and he got the next one on this date in 2012. On November 4, the Lotus driver won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at Yas Marina Circuit, holding off Fernando Alonso by 0.852 seconds in a race that lost its pole-sitter, its tidy order and, for a while, Sebastian Vettel’s front wing.
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Kimi Räikkönen in the Lotus E20 at the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix. Illustrative image, not from Abu Dhabi. Photo: Nic Redhead / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)What happened at the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Lewis Hamilton started from pole position for McLaren and led the early running, with Mark Webber alongside him on the front row. Räikkönen started fourth. Vettel, who had set the third-fastest time, was sent to the back of the grid after the FIA excluded him from qualifying for a technical-regulation breach, and Red Bull opted to start him from the pit lane and rework the car for a recovery drive.
The race did not stay orderly for long. A collision between Nico Rosberg and Narain Karthikeyan’s HRT, which had slowed with a mechanical problem, brought out the first safety car. Vettel, already damaged in the opening laps, pitted for a new nose and tyres and rejoined deep in the field.
The defining moment came around lap 20. Hamilton, comfortably in front, lost power and coasted to a stop with what McLaren identified as a fuel-pressure problem. That handed the lead to Räikkönen, who never gave it back. A second safety car followed late on after Romain Grosjean, Webber and Sergio Pérez collided, ending the races of Grosjean and Webber. Räikkönen then kept Alonso more than a second behind and outside DRS range through the final laps.
Vettel’s recovery was the other story. He cut through the order and passed Jenson Button for third on lap 52 at Turn 11, finishing 4.163 seconds behind the winner. Button took fourth and Pastor Maldonado fifth.
Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull RB8 during 2012 pre-season testing in Barcelona. Illustrative image, not from Abu Dhabi. Photo: Rich Jones / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)The competitive context: a title fight, and a comeback
Räikkönen had returned to Formula 1 in 2012 after two seasons in rallying, joining the Enstone-based Lotus team. He had been consistently fast and regularly on the podium, but a win had not come, and Abu Dhabi was his 19th career victory and his first since the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix, which he won for Ferrari. It also gave a team racing under the Lotus name its first win since Ayrton Senna won in Detroit in 1987.
Meanwhile, the championship was tightening. Vettel left Abu Dhabi leading Alonso 255 points to 245, a ten-point margin with two rounds left, while Red Bull led Ferrari 422 to 340 in the constructors’ standings and needed only a small points haul at the next round in Austin to wrap up that title. Hamilton’s retirement left him mathematically out of the title fight alongside Räikkönen and Webber. He would return to Austin’s Circuit of the Americas many times, including his sixth-title clincher there in 2019.
Why it mattered
For Räikkönen, the win was a statement that his return was no novelty. His relaxed, unfiltered radio message during the race, “Leave me alone, I know what to do,” became one of the most quoted lines of his career and later appeared on Lotus merchandise. It added to a reputation that had already made his 2007 title-winning run in Brazil a modern F1 legend.
For Vettel, finishing third from the pit lane after a damaged front wing and a stop for a new nose showed how hard Red Bull’s package and Vettel’s racecraft were to beat, even on a bad day. That 2012 campaign sits inside the dominant run that continued with his lights-to-flag win at India in 2011 and ended in a fourth straight title in 2013. For Alonso, second place kept Ferrari in the fight with a car that rarely looked like the quickest on the grid.
Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari F2012 at the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix. Illustrative image, not from Abu Dhabi. Photo: Nic Redhead / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)The lasting effect
The result kept the 2012 championship alive through the Austin and São Paulo finales, where Vettel ultimately secured his third consecutive drivers’ title ahead of Alonso. Räikkönen finished the season third in the standings and stayed with Lotus through 2013 before returning to Ferrari for 2014.
More broadly, Abu Dhabi 2012 became a textbook example of how reliability, strategy and safety cars can rewrite a race. It also carried a small regulatory lesson: after the podium interviews, the FIA reminded drivers about language on live broadcasts. And for those who like their historical what-ifs, it left a lingering one about what a clean run for Hamilton might have meant in his final season with McLaren, a tale Christian Horner’s memoir revisits from the Red Bull side.
Related Reading on Backfire Racing
- Today in Motorsport History, October 21: Räikkönen Wins the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix and the F1 Title by One Point
- Today in Motorsport History, October 30: Vettel Led Every Lap of F1’s First Indian Grand Prix in 2011
- Today in Motorsport History, October 27: Vettel Clinched a Fourth Title in India
- Today in Motorsport History, November 3: Hamilton Clinched a Sixth Title in Austin in 2019 as Bottas Won
Sources: Formula1.com official 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix result; FIA race report; FIA on Hamilton’s retirement.
Lead image: Kimi Räikkönen in the Lotus E20 at the 2012 Canadian Grand Prix. Photo by Nic Redhead via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Illustrative image, not from the Abu Dhabi race.
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