I have neglected the blog of late for a few reasons but I have still been eagerly following the track action and I’m back now to give my take on the title decider and the controversy surrounding it. I will also be celebrating the brilliant season that we have had this year.
So Max is the Champion and Lewis’s quest for number 8 will have to wait another year. Before we get onto the events of Abu Dhabi and the controversial decisions made by race direction let me first say that Max is a fully deserving champion and his title shouldn’t be tainted because of how things happened. Full congratulations to RedBull and Verstappen and all the plaudits going his way are fully deserved.
I want to make clear that what happened in the final few laps at Yas Marina does not detract from the brilliant season that Max has put together. He has been sublime all season. Yes there has certainly been some questionable moves in wheel to wheel combat and in my opinion he does need to temper his actions at such times, Saudi Arabia being the perfect example of this. But while I don’t think that this should be forgotten, but he is not the first to have his driving scrutinized in this way and it does not take away from the intense fight he has put up from Bahrain onwards.
The same could also be said of Lewis Hamilton and I don’t say this to sit on the fence but Lewis would equally have deserved the championship this year. Both drivers have been supreme and given us so much to marvel at and saying this only highlights how great a season we have witnessed in 2021. Looking back over the history of the sport I think it is fair to say that this has been one of the best contests ever. There has been nothing separating the drivers or the teams since day one and we have been extremely lucky to have witnessed it.
Ok I think I have made my point on that clear. Let us now turn to what happened in that final race. Other than the first lap it was a bit of a lackluster affair as Merc were the faster package in race trim and Lewis clearly had Max covered on pure pace. RedBull tried what they could with the strategy but until Nicolas Latiffi hit the wall Hamilton and Mercedes had it all under control.
From the moment the safety car was required though the game was changed and confusion reigned. With so few laps left F1 didn’t want the title to be won behind the safety car and were determined to get at least one racing lap in before the race was over. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem but with Max having stopped for fresh rubber (the decision that won RedBull the title lets not forget) there were lapped cars between the two leaders.
The race director found himself between a rock and a hard place because by saving time and not letting the lapped cars through he was denying Max the chance to fight Hamilton at the restart. The race was effectively over at that point. The only way to make that last green flag lap count was to remove the five cars between the top two. However since Merc didn’t want to pit Lewis and surrender track position this was putting Hamilton in a situation where he was a sitting duck.
This is where the confusion comes in because the message had already been relayed that the lapped cars would not be let through. Reversing this decision gave us a exciting last lap but angered everyone from Mercedes and left many others feeling uneasy about what they had just witnessed.
There is quite a lot to unpack from all of this as neither team did anything wrong and to all intents and purposes no rules were broken (although it did leave the impression that the officials were making it up as they went along). RedBull and Max benefited from the mayhem but as mentioned earlier they did make the decision to stop for new tyres and they would have felt aggrieved if they didn’t have the chance to make use of them on that final lap. At the same time Mercedes and Hamilton’s reaction is also understandable as they had done everything that they could have done and had one hand on the title only to be left with nothing to fight with against a fresh tyred Max.
The lack of clear headed decision making by race direction is something that can only be explained by the FIA and will need to be addressed so that we do not see this happen in future events. Race director Michael Masi has to take responsibility for the chaos and may well end up losing his job as a result. For my money I think he has done a good job since taking over from the late Charlie Whiting but what happened in that final race cannot be allowed to happen again.
Mercedes protested and then appealed the result of the race but that was never really going to lead to anything. The FIA are not prone to reversing their own decisions and seeing as RedBull did not do anything wrong they would not have deserved to have the result overturned either. Added to that Merc would not want to win a title in a court room, that would not look or feel good for them or the sport and it has been said that Lewis himself played a key role in convincing the team to back down. However much it may hurt to lose the title in such a way their only option was to accept what happened and prepare to fight back in 22.
Toto Wolfe has hinted that there is no certainty that Lewis will come back next year after what happened but I fully expect to see him on the grid in Bahrain. Once he has had a chance to think things through I’m sure that he will see the best way to move on from it is to fight even harder to get his title back next year. He is nearing the end of his career anyway and there are not going to be many more chances for him to bag that eighth championship and put himself out front in the record books. Sir Lewis will come roaring back in 2022 and hopefully the battle will be just as close and intense as this season.
Before we move on though I would like to take a moment to think about the alternatives that were open to F1 in the closing laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. They could have not let any lapped cars through as per the initial race notification and let Max carve his way through the traffic on the final lap and see if he could have reached Hamilton. That would have have given us some suspense but I very much doubt that Max would have got anywhere near Lewis with enough time to do anything. It would have been consistent though with previous events and would have prevented the sport looking uncoordinated and chaotic.
Better still would have been to red flag the race until Latfiif’s machine had been cleared away, which would have given Hamilton the chance to take on new tyres himself and then we would have have two or three laps with the two of them able to fight it out on equal terms. For me this would have been the best option for it would have provided a nail biting and importantly fair end to the fight for the championship.
As I said at the top this has been a brilliant year of racing, the action has been close, other drivers have shown their strength and we have had some surprise winners. Outside of the title fight Ocon’s win in Hungary and Ricciardo’s triumph at Monza were two of my favorite memories, as was Norris coming close to his first win in Russia. It may not have came together for Lando that day in Sochi but he showed his class and proved that he is ready to win races. I am hoping that we will get to see that happen next year.
McLaren as a team have been very impressive I think and showed another step up in performance over last year. Although Ricciardo had his troubles in the first part of the year and still looks a little inconsistent he has been able to find his feet and bring in some results.
Ferrari have also impressed and they have made some steady progress after their horrible 2020. It is the first time that they have had two consecutive winless seasons since 92-93 so there will not be huge celebrations in Marenello but they appear to have stopped the slide backwards and gained some traction which is the important thing. LeClerc has been his usual best and personally I think Carlos Sainz was one of the stars of the year.
Another star performer was Piere Gasly who more often than not git the most out the Alpha Tauri and brought home a lot of strong results. His goal for next year should be to convince another team higher up the grid to give him a chance, his RedBull chances have gone, they have made that clear and if he stays at the junior team much longer he will stagnate.
We also sad goodbye this year to Sir Frank Williams who passed away the week before Saudi Arabia and my thoughtas are with the Williams family at this time. Frank Williams was a true titan of the sport and his loss is very sad. I will be writing a post about Sir Frank as a way of paying tribute, which will be posted some time over Christmas and New Year but for now RIP Sir Frank.
We have also seen Kimi Raikkonen make his last appearance in F1 this year. This was not unexpected and sadly the results haven’t been there recently but I like Kimi a lot and I will miss The Iceman very much. F1 needs more mavericks and straight talkers. Enjoy your retirement Kimi and I would love to see you in some sort of car at some point in the future.
That is it then. F1 is over until Bahrain in March and I am already excited for it. Goodbye F1 2021 and here’s to more of the same next year. Merry Christmas to all.
My F1 talk 