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🇦🇪 F1 2021 - R22: Beat the King

How is anyone meant to summarise that? 

A one picture summary. (c) Red Bull Content Pool

This intro has been written approximately 34 times already, with the 2021 F1 season looking like Lewis Hamilton was going to win his eighth world championship, something never seen before in the sport, surpassing the amazing Michael Schumacher. 

But then a late-race safety car - and some bravery from Red Bull - created a Netflix Hollywood ending that will be talked about in years to come. Nicholas Latifi was scrapping it out with Mick Schumacher for last place when he lost his rear wheels into the wall on an awkward part of the track, with the safety car forcing the pack to compress. 

And then the brave bit happened with Red Bull pitting Max Verstappen for a set of soft tyres. Race Director Michael Masi made the call to allow the cars in between the championship rivals to unlap themselves, putting no-one in between Hamilton and Verstappen. The result was then inevitable on softs as the Dutchman made an aggressive pass into the first hairpin before holding off the Brit and his ageing tyres down the two straights. 

The result means for the first time since 2016, there’s a new world champion. The first champion since Sebastian Vettel at Red Bull since 2013 and the first non-British or German champion since 2007 (Kimi Raikkonen). And all of this should take nothing away from the now-deposed world champion. Lewis Hamilton of course isn’t done yet, and he has set the bar for so many moments in this F1 season, and up until the last handful of laps, this looked for all the world like number eight. 

FIVE YEARS AGO

But it’s taken an epic effort to beat the champion, so here’s a look at the last two drivers who dethroned him - comparing Nico Rosberg’s 2016 with Max Verstappen’s 2021. 

Firstly, a look at the season points chart. Of course there are differences here, with Rosberg being an internal battle, with all the machinations that brings, but using Hamilton as the constant, here’s how it looked in 2016 and 2021. The first thing to note is that Hamilton is relentlessly brilliant. In 2021, he finished first or second in the last six races, while in 2016, he won the final four races in a row.
But look at the winning drivers. In the majority of races, Verstappen either finished first or second, not finishing third at all. Rosberg was more inconsistent, finishing in a variety of places outside his nine victories. That meant he could “afford” three non-points finishes over the year, compared to Hamilton having two in both years. In his title year, Rosberg only had one (the coming together in Barcelona) with that second DNF in Malaysia being the death blow to Hamilton’s title hopes. 

There are other differences with fastest lap points in 2021, for example, a rule change that did not exist in 2016. Hamilton took one more point for that fastest lap than Verstappen did, with Valtteri Bottas taking three to Sergio Perez’s single top-ten fastest lap in Interlagos when Hamilton produced a stunning drive to win. But with Mercedes being so dominant, it took a massive stroke of luck, plus Red Bull bravery, plus Verstappen doing it on track that gave him the title. 

There are so many little moments that could be mentioned, but the X-factor of having a reliable team mate alongside him cannot be underestimated. It almost feels academic now, but on lap 21 - a few laps after his solitary pit stop - Hamilton was going after Sergio Perez, who offered himself up as bait to the Mercedes driver. 

The Mexican’s job was to try and back up Hamilton, a tactic Hamilton used unsuccessfully at the same track in 2016, reducing the gap between title rivals.

It took the gap down to about a second, but it also took a little bit more life out of his tyres, making him expend more effort to get around him. Not every team mate of Verstappen’s would have been able to pull that off and keep Hamilton engaged for so long. After the race in Jeddah, I wrote: 

“Round 22 in Abu Dhabi is going to be the most anticipated race for a generation and don’t count out Bottas or Perez having a say in how this fight - and it absolutely is a fight - gets decided.” 

And it showed how absent Valtteri Bottas was in Abu Dhabi. The Finnish driver is off to Alfa Romeo this season after 101 races at Mercedes, most of them playing second-fiddle to Hamilton, and never really challenged the front here. Hamilton’s colleague for next season already has strong views on how it finished in 2021. 

Hamilton-Verstappen-Russell-Perez is going to be an incredible fight in 2022, and with the new regulations, who knows who might come and join in at the front? There’s also the loss of Honda being replaced by Red Bull Powertrains, Kimi Raikkonen giving way to Guanyu Zhou, and new cars across the board. 

While it’s the end of the 2021 season, the new era and new guard of Formula 1 is just getting started.

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