Demaiko's first D0 victory sealed the Season 7 BOTT for Williams at Abu Dhabi, ending a title wait that has followed Webbah through four seasons in charge of the team.
Williams began D0 four points short of mathematical safety. Demaiko won and Lorenz Patten finished third, giving the team 49 points to Ferrari's nine and carrying their championship lead beyond reach with eight division races remaining.
For Demaiko, the clinching result was also his second IMS win, and it arrived from the same grid slot as the first. He started third when he won the Season 6 D1 race in Australia; three D0 appearances this season have now produced second, second and first.
The final gap looked comfortable. The comments after the race told a less comfortable story. Demaiko said his tyre wear had reached 80 per cent and that he was losing around a second per lap while saving. Lorenz, running in the group behind, said he deliberately slowed by roughly three seconds a lap in case his team-mate suffered a puncture.
The plan protected Demaiko, but Zopz denied Williams a one-two at the final corner. His last-gasp pass secured second by 0.131 seconds over Lorenz, as four drivers crossed the line within 0.721 seconds of the runner-up spot.
| Pos. | Driver | Grid | Gap | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Demaiko | 3 | Winner | 30 |
| 2 | Zopz | 9 | +9.521 | 23 |
| 3 | Lorenz Patten | 5 | +9.652 | 19 |
| 4 | cloud | 16 | +10.028 | 15 |
| 5 | Karl Verghese | 1 | +10.242 | 14 |
| 6 | ForestalWaif1 | 14 | +19.355 | 11 |
A one-three ends Webbah's four-season wait
Williams left D1 on 1,453 BOTT points to Ferrari's 962, a lead of 491. Nine division races remained and Ferrari could still recover a maximum of 495. The D0 result lifted Williams to 1,502 and Ferrari to 971; the new gap of 531 is 91 more than can be recovered across the final eight races.
Before the weekend, Webbah said finally winning the BOTT would feel like “a relief more than anything”. He had won races and divisional titles as McLaren Team Principal, then seen three Williams campaigns end fifth, second and fourth. Season 7 has delivered the title that kept him in the job.
The same result also moved Williams clear of Ferrari in the D0 constructors' standings. Demaiko and Lorenz's 49 points took them from a tie on 178 to 227, opening a 40-point advantage in the fight for second behind champions Mercedes.
Lorenz's role made the one-three more than a pair of unrelated finishes, even if Zopz's final-corner move denied Williams a one-two. “I tried to hold up in case u got a puncture,” he told Demaiko after the race. Demaiko replied that he had been losing “like a second each lap in the end” through tyre saving.
Karl Verghese was one of the drivers caught in the compact group behind. The pole-sitter finished fifth and felt the Safety Car had arrived at the ideal point for the medium-to-hard runners after he had chosen hard-to-medium. Even after that frustration, he described his racing with Lorenz as “really fun”.
Zopz turns one point behind into 13 ahead
Monza never gave Zopz and piastrigoat the next chapter their one-point contest had promised. Abu Dhabi did, and Zopz took second place at the final corner.
Piastrigoat arrived second in the standings on 118 points, one ahead of Zopz, and qualified on the front row. Zopz started ninth. Passing Lorenz for second completed a 14-point swing: Zopz scored 23, while piastrigoat took nine for seventh. The provisional totals are now Zopz 140, piastrigoat 127 and Karl 120 with Brazil remaining.
One of the three open FIA reports concerns piastrigoat's lap-11 contact with Adaś. Piastrigoat alleged that Adaś turned in too early and wheelhooked the pair into the wall; Adaś said he had been alongside, believed he was entitled to space and also raised lag in his evidence. No ruling had been issued at this draft's cutoff.
Cloud supplied the other major recovery. The champion started 16th and finished fourth, gaining 12 places and ending only 0.376 seconds behind Lorenz. ForestalWaif1 moved from 14th to sixth and Raptorr from 17th to ninth, while five of the 17 starters were classified as non-finishers.
Before Monza, Zopz said beating piastrigoat would show how much he had improved since looking up to him the previous season. The cancelled race delayed that test. Abu Dhabi finally moved the comparison on: Zopz heads to the finale with the benchmark now chasing him.
