McLaren beats Ferrari by a point again

After McLaren's Lewis Hamilton beat Ferrari's Felipe Massa to the world drivers' championship by a single point in 2008, the Italian team was beaten to third place in the 2009 series by the same margin again.

McLaren secured third place in the 2009 constructors' championship (71) by a single point from Ferrari (70). The title was won by Brawn GP who finished 172-138.5 ahead of Red Bull.

Not one of the four McLaren and Ferrari drivers scored a point at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on Sunday. 

Former world champion Lewis Hamilton dominated qualifying and then led the first part of the race after starting from pole position, but was then retired by his team as a safety measure after a problem developed with his rear brakes. Team mate Heikki Kovalainen finished out of the points in eleventh place.

Ferrari fared even worse - former world champion Kimi Räikkönen was twelfth, with Giancarlo Fisichella (standing in for injured Felipe Massa) in 16th place after being lapped by the race leaders.

"I'm extremely proud to be a part of the team that beat Ferrari in the constructors' championship for the first time since 2005," said Kovalainen.

"It's disappointing to see third place in the Constructors' Championship elude us by a single point, but we have to accept the verdict dished out on track," said Ferrari's Stefano Domenicali.

"It was a very disappointing day for us," said Chris Dyer in a Ferrari press release. "We knew after the qualifying result that it would be very tough and so it turned out. This weekend we definitely did not have a good enough level of performance and so we were unable to exploit the help inadvertently given us by our adversaries in the fight for third place."