Lewis Hamilton is hoping his victory in Abu Dhabi is just the start of his return to the top of Formula One.

The McLaren driver has had, in his own words, his “worst” season ever in F1 this year, winning just two races ahead of Sunday’s grand prix at the Yas Marina circuit.

Spending more time in the stewards’ offices than he had done on the podium, Hamilton was in desperate need of a strong finish to the Championship.

And it was handed to him on a plate on Sunday when pole-sitter and proverbial race winner Sebastian Vettel retired on the first lap, gifting the lead to Hamilton.

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Sebastian Vettel’s dominance of Formula 1 is over and from here on in the results will be more evenly spread as McLaren and Ferrari’s pace has increased dramatically, those were the words of Mark Webber during the week leading up to the Belgium Grand Prix.

How wrong was he and for that matter everyone in the Paddock?

Somehow despite starting on blistered tires, Vettel loosing the lead in the first lap and Webber getting of the start line slower than a learner driver at a stop street, they still managed to finish first and second respectively.

It seems every time that McLaren and Ferrari threaten to knock Red Bull of the podium they somehow manage to take it up a notch and pull some kind of miracle out of the bag, or do they?

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Fernando Alonso was always the dangerman for Red Bull after qualifying so close to them, and on Sunday afternoon he put Ferrari back in Victory Lane with a beautifully-judged performance that owed a little to a delay during Sebastian Vettel’s second pit stop.

Vettel appeared to settle for second place once it became clear that he could not catch the red car, having lost crucial time in the pits when there was a problem with a rear wheel. He was 16.5s adrift of the Spaniard by the flag, but had team mate Mark Webber on his tail and threatening to pass until team boss Christian Horner instructed them to “maintain the gap,” as they struggled with their tyres in the closing laps.

Behind them, Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had a real dust-up for fourth place. The Englishman had driven beautifully from 10th on the grid, making up places hand over fist in the early stages when lunchtime rain obliged everyone to opt for Pirelli’s intermediate rain tyres. The rash of stops to change them began on Lap Nine, and meant that nobody thereafter had to use the hard slicks but could run as many softs as they had available.

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Defending Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel was probably smiling all the way to the finish line under his £3000 crash helmet while the rest of the pack struggled to cope with the Red Bull’s blistering pase.

Fernando Alonso was the only other man out there that could come close to the two Red Bulls finishing in second position 10.8 seconds adrift of Vettel, however it has to be said that if it was not for Mark Webber’s gearbox problem towards the end of the race it would surely have been a one two finish for the Red Bull team.

The Alonso/Webber fight for second position was the main focal interest of the race as Vettel just cleared away into the distance. The two drivers swapped positions four times during the race and it seemed like we were going to be in for a fight till the end, but unfortunately Webber’s car developed a gearbox problem causing the Aussie to shortsift the rest of the way to the finish line.

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Jenson Button made sensational amends to McLaren, having inadvertently taken team mate Lewis Hamilton out of a chaotic Canadian Grand Prix on the eighth lap on Sunday, by snatching victory from Sebastian Vettel halfway round the final lap.

The disjointed race began behind the safety car due to heavy rain, started to dry, then got much worse as the rain returned and refused to abate.

Things went bad for McLaren by the second corner as Hamilton tapped Mark Webber into a spin and attracted the attention of the stewards yet again. But that was nothing compared to the bad news that lay ahead for McLaren…

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Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel rode his luck for all it was worth in Monaco this weekend. He got the pole, then had it inadvertently safeguarded after Sergio Perez’s accident.

 Then on Sunday, just as he was under massive pressure on worn tyres from Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Jenson Button, a nail-biting race was brought to a temporary halt when Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari crashed into the back of Lewis Hamilton in the Swimming Pool section, taking out Renault’s Vitaly Petrov in the process.

Alonso finished second for the first time in 2011, with Button third and Red Bull’s Mark Webber fourth.

 Lewis Hamilton became embroiled in a row over critical comments about stewards after finishing sixth.

The Englishman was called before officials for two separate incidents and, asked why he had been to see stewards five times in six races this year, he said, apparently in jest: “Maybe it’s because I’m black. That’s what Ali G says.”

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Sebastian Vettel had to drive the wheels of his Red Bull to hold off a stern challenge from McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton to win a thrilling Spanish Grand Prix.

It was Vettel’s fourth win in five races, but the huge pace advantage Red Bull showed in qualifying vanished and Hamilton pressured him throughout.

Both Red Bull’s held over a second a lap advantage over the two McLarens at the end of qualifying on Saturday, so it came as no surprise after the race Red Bull was doing some serious head scratching wondering where it had all gone to as Hamilton only finished 0.6 seconds behind Vettel and Webber finishing fourth behind the McLaren of Button.

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