Abu Dhabi GP 2021 – the greatest race in the F1 history

The 12th of December, 2021, 13:59. The red lights are about to set the 20 fastest drivers in the world to the formation lap and everybody knows that today will be rewritten history by the two drivers starting on the front row – Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.

First, let's take a quick look at why this race was so important. Both drivers had the same amount of points going into this race weekend – 369.5 points. The championship was tight since the first race in Bahrain, where Verstappen had to give the first place back after overtaking Hamilton off the track, while Lewis used the same shortcut in every second lap of the race Another example is a massive clash in the British GP after which Verstappen ended up in the barriers with an impact reaching almost 51G force. In the last few races, Hamilton was tracing Max and the race in Saudi Arabia was tensive because of that. Many collisions, prohibited driving, and emotions from both teams. Going into Abu Dhabi, they were tight on points, however, Hamilton had a faster and more developed car.

Nonetheless, Max Verstappen qualified for the pole position for the UAE GP, while Lewis Hamilton finished qualifying in second trailing Verstappen by 3 tenths of a second. However, Lewis had a faster car and most importantly jumped Max Verstappen at the start of the Grand Prix. Verstappen tried to divebomb Hamilton back in the turn 9 in the opening lap, unfortunately unsuccessfully.

Both drivers came to the box quite early for their compulsory pit stop and in lap 15, both of these two were on fresh hard tires. Sergio Peréz, the teammate of Max Verstappen, played a tremendous team game on lap 20, holding up Lewis Hamilton by a whole lap while being on an old medium compound tire. Verstappen decreased the gap by almost 10 seconds thanks to the teamwork. The next 33 laps went Lewis onto the fire and even with an alternative strategy (an extra pit stop), Verstappen was not able to stop him. Until a miracle happened.

Nicolas Latifi, a driver for Williams Racing, crashed into the wall on lap 53 after the fight with Mick Schumacher and the safety car came onto the track. Verstappen immediately went to the pits for fresh soft tires because he had to make a different call from Hamilton who stayed on track. Everybody was unsure if will be there any more racing laps because just 4 laps were remaining. After that, another unbelievable thing happened.

Michael Masi, the main race director from the FIA, allowed to restart the race before the final lap. Normally, this would be a completely standard decision, however, three lapped cars were still stuck in the midfield behind the fastest drivers which is not allowed. British commentators were disgusted, for instance, Alex Jaques screamed "This is barely plausible" or Czech F1 commentator Tomáš Richtr said about the decision "It's controversial", but it was already maiden. Verstappen dived ahead of Hamilton in the fifth turn and Hamilton did not find the strength to respond. The crowd was cheering and roaring approval for this because it was the first time in Formula 1 history that the championship fight was decided on the final lap face-to-face with both contenders. Verstappen won the race by a margin of two seconds.

From my own experience, I can say it was a back-and-forth race. I was cheering for Verstappen because he could defend an ultimate record of Michael Schumacher's seven world championship titles – I am an avid Ferrari fan and Lewis equaled this record in the previous year. So – I was frustrated when Lewis overtook Max before the first turn, exhausted when Max tried to divebomb him later on this lap, excited about the Peréz's defense, cried when I saw a hopeless situation with five laps to go, and enormously happy when Max Verstappen, currently three times world champion, slide to the chequered flag under the fireworks for the Grand Prix winner. It was the greatest race in F1 history. So far...

Jakub Ondruš

Sources: 

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/database/races/2021-abu-dhabi-grand-prix/</p>

https://www.planetf1.com/news/abu-dhabi-grand-prix-2021-race-report<br>