Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton secured an 11th victory of the 2018 Formula 1 season at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, taking a dominant win under lights at the Yas Marina Circuit.
Hamilton, who started the 55-lap race from pole position, constantly had one hand on the winning trophy, maintaining his lead from the get-go and using a one-stop strategy to his advantage, pitting at the end of lap 7 for a set of Supersoft tyres that he would use for the remainder of the race.
Rejoining in fifth place behind Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen, Hamilton temporarily handed the lead to Valtteri Bottas who later pitted at the end of lap 16, covering Sebastian Vettel who tried to use an undercut strategy to his advantage in an attempt to secure the net second place.
With Verstappen later pitting at the end of lap 17 and Ricciardo pitting for fresh tyres on lap 33, Hamilton then regained the lead, filtering through the field as each car ahead performed their mandatory pit stop.
Taking the chequered flag at the end of lap 55, Hamilton crossed the finishing line to seal another victory for Mercedes while Vettel took second place after clearing Bottas who had a sudden drop in pace in the second half of the Grand Prix.
Max Verstappen ended his season on a high by taking a fifth consecutive podium, fronting a 3-4 finish for Red Bull with Ricciardo narrowly missing out on a top three finish in what was his final race for the Milton Keynes-based outfit.
Struggling for pace and having a looming issue with his right rear tyre, Bottas completed the top five in the second Mercedes, using a two-stop strategy.
In the 'Class B' championship of Formula 1, it was Carlos Sainz Jr who finished in sixth place, securing a haul of eight points for Renault while team-mate Nico Hulkenberg failed to make it beyond lap 1 after getting caught up in an incident with Romain Grosjean, with his rear right being clipped, pitching the driver into the air, flipping into the outside wall of Turn 9.
Sauber's Charles Leclerc took seventh after successfully holding off a near constant attack from Sergio Perez who took eighth place after starting down in 14th.
Grosjean fronted a double points finish for Haas F1, taking the chequered flag in ninth while Kevin Magnussen was 10th, benefitting from a late-race retirement for Pierre Gasly who had a power unit issue for Toro Rosso.
In his final race in Formula 1, Fernando Alonso missed out on the points for McLaren, taking 11th ahead of Brendon Hartley, Lance Stroll, Stoffel Vandoorne and Sergey Sirotkin who was the final finisher.
In similar circumstances to Gasly, Esteban Ocon was one of the five retirements in the race, with an oil leak forcing the driver to park his Force India in the pit lane while reliability also ended the running of Macus Ericsson and Kimi Raikkonen.
