ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Stooped beside his silver and black Mercedes W15 car on the main straight of the Yas Marina Circuit on Sunday, Lewis Hamilton paused to soak up the moment.

It was the final time after 12 seasons, 246 grands prix, 84 race wins and six drivers’ world championships, making it the longest and most successful driver and team partnership in the history of F1, that he would be alone with his Mercedes car. In February, he’ll be racing in red for Ferrari.

Balancing on his toes and with his forearms resting on the sidepod, helmet still on, Hamilton bowed his head and took some time to think about the journey he and Mercedes had been on together. The good, the bad. The highs, the lows.

“I just wanted to embrace the moment because it’s the last time I’m going to step into a Mercedes and represent them,” Hamilton said in the media pen after the race, eyes glistening. “It’s been the greatest honor of my life.”

The overriding emotion in that moment beside the car was gratitude. “I was just giving thanks,” Hamilton said. “Firstly, thanking my own spirit for not giving up, for continuing to push, and thanking everyone that powers and builds that car. I’m proud of everyone.”

Twenty-four hours earlier, it felt like Hamilton’s last blast in the silver car might be a difficult one. Mercedes made a mistake by mistiming his last qualifying run in Q1, leaving him a lowly 16th on the grid. Toto Wolff, the team principal, apologized to Hamilton for an “idiotic” mistake that would make his race much, much tougher.

In the post-qualifying debrief, even as the engineers and strategists rued the error, Hamilton reminded them of all the good moments they’d enjoyed together. He was still hopeful of finishing on a high, providing a swansong tribute to the team that has given him so much professionally and personally.

And Hamilton did exactly that, delivering a memorable fightback to sign off at Mercedes in Abu Dhabi.

From 16th, he made up a handful of positions on the opening lap thanks to incidents ahead before sitting on the fringes of the points. By running the alternate tire strategy, the plan was always to run deep on the hard tire before pitting, setting Hamilton up for a final charge to the line. After biding his time and letting the cars ahead pit, he started moving into position for a decent points haul. Hamilton’s engineer, Pete Bonnington, came onto the radio toward the end of the first stint to say there was a possible third-place finish on the cards, according to Mercedes’ data.

Hamilton emerged from the pits in seventh place with fresh medium tires, ready to bear down on the cars ahead on older, slower hards. For one final time, Bonnington delivered the catchphrase that it was time for Hamilton to push, one that has encouraged the Briton to claim wins and poles throughout their time together.

“OK, Lewis, it’s hammer time!”

Lewis Hamilton started P16 at the Abu Dhabi GP and finished P5. (Photo by Luca Martini / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

“When he told me, I was like, I can’t remember the last time he told me ‘hammer time,’” Hamilton said post-race. “I remember I told Bono to say hammer time back in the first year together. I was like, ‘Don’t tell me just, ‘go faster,’ just tell me, ‘It’s hammer time,’ and I’ll know what it is!’”

As always, Hamilton got the memo. He quickly picked off Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly before being told there was a 14-second gap to his teammate, George Russell, ahead in fourth place. The pair went into Abu Dhabi tied on points from their three seasons together. This last stint would settle the intra-team battle. Hamilton said it “took perfection” to catch Russell in the final stages.

It went all the way to the last lap. On the radio, Wolff told Russell to bear in mind the situation, which was a gentle reminder to keep things clean. Russell was powerless to keep his teammate behind anyway when at Turn 9, the same corner where Hamilton saw Max Verstappen pull away to the championship three years ago and deny him a historic eighth title, Hamilton swept around Russell outside and moved ahead. A brave, brilliant overtake.

“I only caught him right at that last lap, and I was like, it’s now or never,” Hamilton said. Russell thought it was “quite a fitting way to finish with Lewis, just one second apart after these three years” and was pleased to see his teammate end in style. “He deserved it,” Russell said. “The team deserved to give him that send-off.”

As he turned through the final few corners, the sky already lit up with fireworks to honor Lando Norris’s win, Hamilton soaked in the last moments as a Mercedes grand prix driver before crossing the line. The radio messages with Bonnington and Wolff on the cool-down lap were filled with emotion, Bonnington seemingly in tears. The end had arrived.

Hamilton was positive and reflective after his final Mercedes race. (Joe Portlock/Getty Images)

Post-race, the analytical side of Wolff pondered that, without the bollard getting stuck under Hamilton’s car in qualifying, he might’ve been able to fight for victory. Hamilton told Wolff to instead think about the 84 wins they’d already achieved together.

“These last few races, they don’t change how we feel about it,” Wolff said. “He drove like a world champion today from P16. We played the long game and finished fourth, driving away from the Red Bull. That was a statement of a world champion.”

Hamilton was also glad to finish a challenging year on a high. Despite wins at Silverstone and Spa, his first victories since 2021, seventh place still marks his lowest championship finish in F1, having struggled to gel with the tricky Mercedes car throughout the year. The subtext of his pending move to Ferrari, announced at the start of February, underpinning everything this year also presented its own challenge.

“It’s been a really turbulent year, probably the longest year of my life, I would say,” Hamilton said. “We’ve known from the beginning that I’m leaving, and it’s like a relationship — when you’ve told whoever the counterpart is that you’re leaving, but you’re living together for a whole year. Lots of ups and downs, emotionally. But we finished off with a high today.”

The only emotions Hamilton felt post-race were positive. He’d completed his celebratory donuts on the start-finish line, permission given to him as part of the FIA’s post-race procedures, and then gone back to the Mercedes garage to celebrate with his team, so many of whom were eager to get one final picture together. A lasting memory for all their success. All the history they have written.

Hamilton performs a burnout after the Abu Dhabi Formula One Grand Prix. (GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFP via Getty Images)

The whole weekend had been about that. On Thursday, Hamilton took a number of his engineers and mechanics, including Bonnington, for a hot lap about the Yas Marina Circuit. Mercedes then held a team event on Thursday night that looked back on Hamilton’s time at Brackley and paid tribute to all their success. Hamilton had no idea it was happening and was genuinely touched by the surprise.

“That was super emotional,” he said. “I ain’t got no more tears, really. Everything came out there.”

That didn’t stop Sunday from being soaked in emotion. Despite the challenges of this year and the long, awkward goodbye before he moves to Ferrari, a fierce rival Hamilton and Mercedes have worked tirelessly to defeat, there has always been an underlying respect and affection for all they’ve accomplished together. The message from Wolff and the Mercedes board members in Abu Dhabi to Hamilton was that he would always be a part of their story and, more importantly, their family.

When Hamilton made the decision to quit McLaren for Mercedes back in 2012, many thought it was the wrong move. Few could have predicted their success. Even fewer that the relationship would’ve lasted so long and run so deep.

As Hamilton put it on the cool-down lap, “What started out as a leap of faith turned into a journey into the history books.” What a journey it has been.

Top photo: Sipa USA

At the end of his free skate Saturday, Ilia Malinin sprawled out on the ice, eyes closed, soaking it all in. The man known as the “Quad God” had just unleashed a series of quadruple jumps — including the quad axel, a jump that no one else has ever landed — and even a backflip in his typical spectacular style.

The routine had included a fall and several other miscues, but it didn’t matter. Malinin, the rising American who turned 20 on Monday, easily beat Japanese rival Yuma Kagiyama to win the men’s singles competition in the Grand Prix Final, finish an undefeated 2024 and further cement his status as a superstar in the making.

Perhaps the only thing not going Malinin’s way is that the Olympics are in 14 months instead of two.

Since the 2022 Beijing Games, Malinin has become the new force in men’s figure skating, his win Saturday completing a perfect calendar year that included the World Championship gold medal and has made him the sport’s clear No. 1, just over a year before the 2026 Olympics begin in Milan.

Malinin started with a dazzling short program Friday, opening up a near-12-point lead over Kagiyama, the silver medalist at worlds behind Malinin. In Saturday’s free skate, Malinin unleashed a barrage of quads — the axel, lutz, salchow, toe loop, loop and flip — and a crowd-pleasing backflip near the end to claim another major title. He finished with a combined score of 292.12, besting Kagiyama’s 281.78. Japan’s Shun Sato took third with a 270.82.

“I had this idea and this goal that I wanted to achieve here, and I was able to blow it out of the park,” Malinin said in the arena after the win.

A familiar sound for Ilia Malinin. 🇺🇸

He stands on the top of the podium after successfully defending his #GPFigure title. 🥇 pic.twitter.com/QkhbfrWP8f

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) December 7, 2024

The Grand Prix Final is the culmination of figure skating’s annual Grand Prix series, inviting only the top six skaters or pairs in each discipline. It’s among the most prestigious worldwide titles in the sport, after the Olympics and the World Championships.

The win capped a stellar weekend in Grenoble, France, for the U.S. with three titles. Earlier Saturday, Amber Glenn won the women’s competition, and Madison Chock and Evan Bates — the two-time defending world champions — won the ice dance for the second straight year. The Americans also took a gold and two silvers in the junior competition.

Malinin was born and raised in Virginia. His parents, Roman Skorniakov and Tatiana Malinina, are former Olympic figure skaters with Russian and Uzbekistani heritage. They relocated to the U.S. and live in Vienna, Va., where Malinin learned to skate at the facility where his parents coach. He attends George Mason University.

Malinin might already be a household name for casual Olympics fans if not for a decision in 2022 that kept him off the U.S. team in Beijing.

At the U.S. Championships that year, one month before the Olympics, Malinin — who had just turned 18 — finished a surprising second place behind Nathan Chen, making a strong case to be named to the team. But the selection committee — not required to choose based on the results alone — instead opted for experience and picked former Olympians Vincent Zhou and Jason Brown — the third- and fourth-place finishers at nationals — to join Chen in Beijing and made Malinin the first alternate.

It worked out for the U.S. — it won team gold after Russian skater Kamila Valieva was disqualified and her score subtracted — but it meant Malinin would have to wait for his Olympic debut.

In the time since, he has skyrocketed to the top of the sport. After the Olympics, the Americans sent Malinin to the 2022 World Championships, where he finished ninth. Then he competed in the World Junior Championships and won gold for his first major victory.

From there, he competed on the senior circuit full time. The 2022-23 season brought gold at the U.S. Championships and bronze at worlds and the Grand Prix Final, as well as his first successful quad axel. Now, in 2024, he’s been unbeatable — World Championships, Grand Prix Final, U.S. Championships — gold in all.

Before his arrow-shot up the rankings, Malinin gained recognition for an unprecedented move. Until Sept. 15, 2022, no figure skater had landed a fully rotated quadruple axel — four full spins in the air off the axel jump, which is considered the hardest in the sport and starts forward-facing, necessitating an extra half rotation to complete.

That changed when Malinin unleashed it at an event in Lake Placid, N.Y.

History. Made.🤯

17-year-old Ilia Malinin 🇺🇸 becomes the first figure skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition.

Full story ➡️ https://t.co/cIHBkGIZFH#FigureSkatingpic.twitter.com/jysyCrF0lr

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— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) September 15, 2022

He’s repeated the feat several times since and goes by the nickname “Quadg0d” on Instagram in honor of the accomplishment. He’s said in interviews he’s considering trying a quintuple version of the jump.

It’s his signature move but far from the extent of his skill. Malinin’s athletic routines have produced massive scores — including a world-record free skate at this year’s World Championships. He wasted no time breaking out a backflip in competition in October after a ban on the move — in place since 1977 — was lifted earlier this year.

Can we talk about Ilia Malinin casually doing a backflip in his program real quick? 🫨 #SkateAmerica pic.twitter.com/vcafwJn2yZ

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) October 21, 2024

Malinin finished 2024 with seven wins in seven events. He hasn’t finished out of the top three in any event since that 2022 World Championships he competed in after missing out on Beijing. And the next major event is on his home turf — the 2025 worlds are in Boston from March 23 to 30.

There’s still another year of competition until the Olympics begin in Milan in February 2026, time for another top contender like Kagiyama or France’s Adam Siao Him Fa — the bronze medalist at last year’s worlds who missed this Grand Prix Final with an injury — to chase Malinin down. But the American enters 2025 as the clear No. 1 in the sport.

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(Photo: Jurij Kodrun / International Skating Union via Getty Images)

Buster Posey held the San Francisco Giants’ record for the largest contract in franchise history. In Posey’s first major move as the club’s president of baseball operations, he did not hesitate to smash it.

The Giants agreed to terms with free-agent shortstop Willy Adames on a seven-year, $182 million contract on Saturday, reshaping the left side of their infield for the remainder of the decade and signaling their resolve to remain aggressive as they seek to reestablish their relevance in the National League West. The agreement with Adames is pending a physical — more than a trifling detail given the medical issues that scuttled Carlos Correa’s $350 million contract following the 2022 season — and its guaranteed money would soar past Posey’s own nine-year, $167 million contract that he signed after winning the NL MVP Award in 2012.

With Adames and third baseman Matt Chapman, who signed a six-year, $150 million extension in September, the Giants have committed a third of a billion dollars to establish a solid offensive and defensive presence on the left side of their infield. Viewed together, those investments are not so different from the megadeals that the Texas Rangers gave to shortstop Corey Seager and second baseman Marcus Semien after the 2021 season — a $500 million bet that paid off when the Rangers won the first World Series title in franchise history two years later.

Adames, 29, earned 4.8 fWAR last season when he finished fourth in the majors with 112 RBIs, set career highs in home runs (32) and stolen bases (21), and led the Milwaukee Brewers to the NL Central title. Likely just as significant to Posey and the Giants, Adames was a respected leader in Milwaukee, praised for his durability and his ability to produce in the clutch. He was among the league’s best defenders at shortstop in 2023, and although several of his advanced metrics declined this past season, there’s little doubt that he represents an upgrade with the glove over the Giants’ internal options at the position.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the Giants’ stunning agreement, which came on the eve of baseball’s Winter Meetings in Dallas, is how it reflects on Posey, who had been something of a cipher in his brief tenure as a first-time baseball executive, filling out front-office positions and adding advisory voices but otherwise providing few specifics on how aggressive he would be at improving a team that finished 80-82 in 2024 while missing the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.

But Posey had been clear on one point: He identified acquiring a shortstop as the club’s top priority. And the Giants just agreed to sign the top shortstop on the free-agent market.

Posey had a talent for cutting through the noise during his career behind the plate, tackling problems head-on, carving a direct path and avoiding the trap of overthinking. If his first major move as the Giants’ chief baseball architect is any indication, he will lean on those same attributes and impulses while seeking to close the sizable gap between his team and the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.

Identify problem. Fix problem.

Posey wasn’t sufficiently deterred by the fact that signing Adames, who had been extended a qualifying offer by the Brewers, will force the Giants to sacrifice their second- and fifth-round picks along with $1 million in international bonus money from their 2026 pool. Those are no small considerations for a franchise that also punted its second- and third-round picks in this past draft after signing Chapman and left-hander Blake Snell the previous offseason. The Giants wouldn’t have lost draft picks if they had pivoted from Adames to shortstop Ha-Seong Kim, a favorite of Giants manager Bob Melvin from their time together in San Diego but who will be continuing to rehab from offseason shoulder surgery on Opening Day.

But Adames was clearly the best shortstop on the market. And Posey kept it as simple as that.

“Ultimately, it’s a boring answer, but you just want complete baseball players,” Posey said at the GM Meetings in November. “You want guys who can do some of everything.”

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Interestingly, Posey’s first major free-agent signing is a fellow CAA client. The Giants recently announced the hiring of Jeff Berry, Posey’s former agent and the former head of CAA’s baseball division, as a special advisor.

ESPN was the first to report the agreement. The Giants aren’t expected to announce it until late Sunday or Monday.

The addition of Adames would push Tyler Fitzgerald into a competition at second base with Casey Schmitt, Brett Wisely and potentially Marco Luciano if the organization’s former top prospect isn’t traded or moved to the outfield.

The biggest question becomes how aggressive the Giants will be to address their second major need: a pitching presence for a rotation that threw the fewest innings in the National League despite the fact that their opening-day ace, Logan Webb, threw the most on an individual basis. Several reports have linked the Giants to former Cy Young Award winner Corbin Burnes, a Bakersfield-area native who competed at Saint Mary’s College in Moraga and would give the Giants one of the best 1-2 punches in the league.

Before last season with the Baltimore Orioles, Burnes had spent his entire major-league career with the Brewers so the addition of Adames might be a selling point in any Giants’ attempt at a pursuit. Both players are very well known to Zack Minasian, the Giants’ newly elevated GM, who had been the scouting director in Milwaukee during his 14 seasons with the organization. Minasian had been one of the strongest voices to champion Burnes when the right-hander showed promise in the minor leagues, advising then-Brewers GM Doug Melvin to make the former fourth-round pick practically untouchable in trade discussions.

On a cash basis, the Giants spent $206 million on player salaries last season, exceeded the luxury tax threshold ($237 million) for the first time since 2018 and sustained operating losses that caused some discomfort among members of the ownership group. Their placeholder budget numbers for 2025 had called for a reduction in player payroll, which might still be achieved even if the club can win the bidding for Burnes — a market that is expected to exceed $200 million — as well as Adames.

Adding Adames’ $26 million average annual value would put the Giants’ estimated cash-basis payroll at roughly $170 million. If the Giants seek to trim in other areas, they could trade one or more of their arbitration-eligible players (LaMonte Wade Jr. and Camilo Doval among them). Or they could sign one of several second-tier starting pitchers who won’t come cheap — witness Luis Severino’s three-year, $67 million contract with the A’s — but would require a fraction of what it would take to land Burnes, who notably left CAA for the Boras Corporation in 2023 and whose potential signing also would cost the Giants their third- and sixth-round draft picks.

Or Posey could do what he demonstrated so often over his playing career: cut through the noise, go after the best player, and convince ownership to spend.

“I know we’ll be very diligent in our decision-making,” Posey said last month. “But something I’ve tried to inject with the group is for us not to be hamstrung from that potential fear of failure. It’s knowing that, ‘Hey, sometimes we’re going to have to risk media members saying this was a bad decision or a bad move.’ But if we feel convicted in it, then you have to be OK with it.”

(Top photo of Adames: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)