New Zealand driver Brendon Hartley has finished 15th as Valtteri Bottas won the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to wrap up the Formula One season.
Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas. Photo: Photosport
This year's champion four-times world champion Lewis Hamilton had to settle for second, but it still completed a one-two finish for teams champions Mercedes.
The win was a career third for Finnish driver Bottas, who had started on pole position at the Yas Marina circuit, and denied Hamilton a 10th win of the campaign.
Hartley improved from starting last on the grid to finish 15th, just ahead of his Toro Rosso team-mate Pierre Gasly.
"It's a really important win for me after having a pretty difficult start to the second half of the year," said Bottas, who joined Mercedes after 2016 champion Nico Rosberg retired abruptly a year ago.
"This weekend, pole and win, I couldn't be happier to end the season like this."
In a processional race under the floodlights, Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel took third place to finish runner-up in a championship that Hamilton won in Mexico last month.
The final points tally was Hamilton 363, Vettel 317 and Bottas 305.
Mercedes had already won the constructors' world championship for the fourth year in a row and ended with 668 points to Ferrari's 522. The one-two finish was their fourth of the season.
"After three, four or five laps I couldn't go any faster and from then it was pretty lonely," said Vettel, a three-times winner in Abu Dhabi.
"In the second part of the race we had a stronger pace but not good enough.
"Lewis deserves to win the championship this year. I hate to say it but he was the better man."
Hamilton kept Bottas in his sights but was also unable to pass. He said that was not because of a lack of intent or team orders.
"Big congratulations to Valtteri, he did an amazing job to hold me off. It was a great race, I gave it everything. It is hard to overtake here," he said.
With the finishing order reflecting the starting positions, the exception being Red Bull's Australian Daniel Ricciardo retiring with an hydraulics issue, the main suspense was in midfield.
Toro Rosso, Renault and Haas were separated by just six points before the start, with millions of dollars in prize money at stake and Renault taking the honours thanks to Nico Hulkenberg's sixth place.
It was still a tense evening for the French manufacturer team, however, after their Spanish driver Carlos Sainz was released from a pitstop with a loose wheel and retired after almost crashing in the exit tunnel.
There was also an emotional send-off to Williams's veteran Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, the 2008 world championship runner-up bowing out after 269 starts.
