Hamilton urges changes to final race

Lewis Hamilton has called for changes to Formula One’s season-ending fixture after a lacklustre conclusion to his world championship-winning campaign in Abu Dhabi.

Hamilton finished behind his Mercedes team-mate and race winner Valtteri Bottas, while Sebastian Vettel completed the podium places, following a race which will not live long in the memory.

Abu Dhabi has become the stage for Formula One’s season finale – indeed it pays a premium to do so – and it is one played out against the backdrop of an exotic harbour.

But the 3.3-mile Yas Marina track is notable for its lack of action, and aside from Daniel Ricciardo’s hydraulics failure and Carlos Sainz’s dodgy tyre following a pit-stop error by his Renault team, it was yet another Abu Dhabi race to pass off without incident.

“They’ve got to change this track,” Hamilton, 32, said. “It’s just impossible to overtake. You have to have a 1.4 second advantage on the car in front. Valtteri and I have got the same car, and there’s not 1.4 seconds between us in ability.

“You have the long straights where you can’t even get close enough to utilise them. If there is some way to enable us to remain closer, it is a track which will go up in the rankings, but I don’t know if they can change it. I know there’s money to do it. I have hope for Abu Dhabi to get better.”

Hamilton vowed to end the season with a bang, but after finishing ninth in Mexico, recovering from last to fourth in Brazil, and a second-placed finish here, the Briton will next year start his title defence off the back of a threerace winless streak.