Lewis Hamilton's girlfriend Nicole Scherzinger arrives at the track, hoping to watch her boyfriend clinch his second world title - but the McLaren driver has it all to do, with 24 points to make up on Fernando Alonso, and only 25 available
Mark Webber's Red Bull car waits in the team garage. The Australian is the closest challenge to Ferrari driver Alonso but he has qualified only fifth after admitting he did not have the pace to be higher
All is quiet in the McLaren garage as Hamilton's car sits under cover waiting for the mechanics to prepare it for the most important race of the season
Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo arrives in style, chauffeur-driven in a golf buggy, dressed in white to ward off the desert heat
Red Bull owner Dietrich Mateschitz takes centre stage as his team celebrate winning the constructors' championship. Will they be celebrating a drivers' world championship later?
Opera singer Placido Domingo is among the celebrities watching the action in Yas Marina as the tension starts to build with the clock counting down to the race start at 1300 GMT
Relations between Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber clearly have not entirely broken down as the Red Bull drivers prepare for the team photo. Can either of them overhaul Alonso?
The drivers' class of 2010 pose for a final team photograph - Michael Schumacher makes this one, after incurring Bernie Ecclestone's wrath by missing one with the team bosses on Friday
The whole of Italy is behind Alonso, with thousands of fans gathering at Ferrari's Maranello base to cheer on the Spaniard to what they hope is his third world title in his first year with the team
After all the build-up, the final and decisive race of the season is eventually under way and Jenson Button gets a great start to get past third-placed Alonso into the first corner
The safety car is soon out when Force India's Vitantonio Liuzzi smashes into Michael Schumacher's car after the Mercedes driver spins at Turn Six. The German is fortunate not to suffer serious injury
The safety car comes in on lap five, Vettel starts building up a lead over second-placed Hamilton while Alonso and Webber are battling in fourth and fifth - a result which would still see the Ferarri driver win the title
Alonso's challenge comes unstuck when his team decide to cover Webber's early pit-stop. It does not work out as intended for both drivers, with the Spaniard getting stuck behind Renault's Vitaly Petrov
Vettel comes in for his stop on lap 24, just after Hamilton, leaving Button in the lead which he keeps for another 14 laps before pitting himself
Button's pit stop leaves Vettel out on his own and with Hamilton getting bogged down by the stubborn Renault of Robert Kubica, the German has a clear run to take his fifth win of the season
The title is not yet his, however, and only when Alonso and Webber finish in seventh and eighth can Vettel be officially crowned as Formula 1's youngest world champion
Vettel is flanked by the two previous world champions, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, who are not shy in dousing the new title holder in rose water on the podium
Vettel is only the second German driver to take the world crown and the other member of that exclusive club, Michael Schumacher, takes time out to congratulate him after the race
For the other championship contenders, it is a case of what might have been. A forlorn Mark Webber waves to the crowd as he thinks about what went wrong in Abu Dhabi
The rest of the Red Bull team, however, are in party mode as they celebrate claiming the constructors' and drivers' championships in only their sixth season in the sport
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