How diplomacy between F1's heavyweights died in 2021

“They definitely have a true dislike for each other. It’s added to the drama. I think you do see them playing to the camera a bit from time to time.”

McLaren CEO Zak Brown’s summary may have befitted Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton in 2021. But it was their respective team bosses, Christian Horner of Red Bull and Toto Wolff of Mercedes, who Brown was talking about after one of the most toxic political battles Formula 1 has seen in the past decade.

Horner said 2021 had been “by far the most intense political fight we’ve been involved in in our time in this sport” as Red Bull looked to dethrone Mercedes from its seven consecutive years as constructors’ champion. It led to a season of shots being fired back and forth, appeals against rulings, recreations of incidents, rights to reviews, on-track collisions, and controversy that went down to the very last lap of the season – and beyond.

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The political landscape in F1 this year was vastly different to 2020, when battles had engulfed all teams at one point or another, particularly through the Concorde Agreement renewal. Bar some early-season gripes from Aston Martin over the downforce cuts to slow the cars down, politics in F1 this year really came down to two teams: Mercedes and Red Bull.

It had all started so cordially. The aero cuts had hurt Mercedes badly and brought Red Bull into the fight, yet this was a challenge that was welcomed. After seven years of largely unrivalled dominance, Mercedes looked in danger of losing its crowns, but both Hamilton and the team felt energised by the new fight as wins were traded back and forth through the early part of the season.

The first major political flare-up came at the Spanish Grand Prix, when a throwaway comment by Hamilton about Red Bull’s “bendy wing” – he was inferring that the rules were being exploited to boost top speed on the straights while retaining downforce for corners – started the first of the rear-wing-design sagas of 2021.

Hamilton accused Red Bull of running a "bendy wing" in Spain, which lit a fire under the simmering rivalry

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Red Bull stressed its design had passed FIA tests, but a clampdown from the governing body followed, only for a delay in the rules coming into force leading to protest threats. Red Bull turned things around on Mercedes.

“If I was Toto with the front wing he’s got on his car, I’d keep my mouth shut,” said Horner. Wolff fired back by calling his counterpart “a bit of a windbag who wants to be on camera”. The saga fizzled out without a protest in Baku before the clampdown came into force – but bigger trouble was brewing.

It was inevitable, really. Hamilton and Verstappen couldn’t go the whole season without their on-track battle spilling over and ending in contact, which finally came on the opening lap of the British GP. As the duo went wheel to wheel into Copse, their cars touched, sending Verstappen off track and into the wall at a force of 51G. Hamilton was hit with a 10-second penalty after he was deemed to be predominantly to blame, but recovered to win his home race for an eighth time. Red Bull was furious.

Horner called Hamilton’s move “amateurish” and “desperate”, and branded it “dirty driving”. Red Bull’s Helmut Marko accused Hamilton of “reckless driving”, while Verstappen felt aggrieved that Mercedes celebrated the win while he was in hospital undergoing precautionary checks. The comments prompted Mercedes to fight back.

The Sao Paulo GP was the race that would turn the needle between Wolff and Horner into something greater. In the space of two weeks, they went from comparing each other to characters in a pantomime to threatening protests and declaring there was “no relationship” between their respective teams

“The language that was used, and making it so personal, was a level we have not seen in this sport before,” said Wolff. Hamilton faced a barrage of racist abuse online, which was condemned in a joint statement from F1, Mercedes and Red Bull. Hamilton felt it was “the first time that I didn’t stand alone in the sport” when dealing with such abuse.

Red Bull remained adamant that Hamilton deserved a greater penalty for the crash, prompting it to request a right of review with the FIA stewards. After promising to “bring new facts” to light, Red Bull’s bid was thrown out by the stewards, who did not deem a re-enactment of Hamilton’s line by reserve driver Alex Albon during a Silverstone filming day to be either significant or relevant. Mercedes said it hoped the decision would “mark the end of a concerted attempt by the senior management of Red Bull to tarnish the good name and sporting integrity of Lewis Hamilton”.

The summer months cooled things off, only for another collision to relight the fuse at Monza. This time, it was Verstappen who was judged to be at fault for not backing out of the battle into the first chicane, resulting in his car landing on top of Hamilton’s and eliminating both from the race. Wolff called it a “tactical foul”; Horner said it was a “racing incident”. It only added fuel to the fire to both the on-track battle and the political scrap.

Red Bull felt wronged after Hamilton survived his British Grand Prix clash with Verstappen to win

Photo by: Sutton Images

The Sao Paulo GP was the race that would turn the needle between Wolff and Horner into something greater. In the space of two weeks, they went from comparing each other to characters in a pantomime to threatening protests and declaring there was “no relationship” between their respective teams.

The drama on the Interlagos weekend this time started as early as Friday. After Hamilton had taken pole position for the sprint race by a mammoth four tenths of a second, his rear wing failed a technical check, leading to his exclusion from qualifying.

Verstappen had also been investigated after he breached parc ferme rules by touching Hamilton’s rear wing after the session, leading to a €50,000 fine. But his comment that he touched it to see “how much the rear wing was flexing” set off the second flexi-wing saga for the season, with Red Bull claiming that “score marks” on the Mercedes proved there was some flexing. Mercedes denied this was the case, and said Red Bull had seen “a ghost”.

Hamilton’s subsequent performance at Interlagos only stoked the fire further. Armed with a fresh engine, he charged from last to fifth in the sprint race, then went from 10th after a grid penalty to win on Sunday, displaying what Horner called “mindboggling” straight-line speed. The win came after another wheel-to-wheel fight with Verstappen that sparked controversy. Verstappen forced Hamilton wide at Turn 4 and, although Hamilton would go on to overtake and win the race, the stewards’ decision not to take action was called “laughable” by Wolff.

“We’ve had many, many punches in the face this weekend,” he said. “When always the decisions swing against you, it’s something that I’m just angry about, and I will defend my team and my drivers to what comes. I’ve always been very diplomatic in how I discuss things. But diplomacy has ended today.”

It set up a terse press conference between Wolff and Horner one week later in Qatar. The threat of a protest from Red Bull against Mercedes’ rear wing still loomed, but ultimately came to nothing after the FIA introduced new checks that appeased Red Bull despite holding no regulatory impact. Mercedes’ request to review the Interlagos Turn 4 incident got thrown out, leaving some drivers unclear on what was and was not permitted in wheel-to-wheel battles.

It was in Qatar that Horner said there was “no relationship” between the two teams.

“There is respect for everything that Mercedes have done and everything that Lewis Hamilton has done, but I don’t need to go to dinner with Toto,” Horner said. “I don’t need to kiss his arse, or anything like that.”

Verstappen wasn't penalised for his defence against Hamilton in Brazil, where the Mercedes driver had charged from the back of the sprint race grid

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Wolff compared their fight to MMA, saying: “Elbows are allowed now because the rules say so. Gloves are off and nothing else is to be expected.”

Amid the intensity of their political fight, both Wolff and Horner expressed the desire for the championship to be settled on track, and yet come the chequered flag in Abu Dhabi, the final battle was only just about to begin.

The circumstances of the late-restart procedure by FIA race director Michael Masi that ultimately led to the last-lap decider meant that, contrary to the hopes of both teams, it was not a championship finally settled on track. Within 30 minutes of Verstappen crossing the line to win the world championship after passing Hamilton moments earlier, Mercedes had lodged two protests with the FIA, whose race director, the team argued, had not followed his own rulebook. Masi had not allowed all lapped cars to unlap themselves, neither had he followed the regulation that would have timed out the race.

The protests were thrown out, but the explanation did little to satisfy Mercedes or Hamilton, both of whom felt they had been denied a rightful championship. It also meant that an F1 championship showdown that had gone mainstream thanks to its sporting drama was now in the headlines for all the wrong reasons. It was the ending no one wanted to a classic season.

As we enter 2022 and long-awaited new regulations that could lead to closer competition, the series as a whole faces wider questions over how a classic season with so much good could have ended in such controversial fashion

Horner said Mercedes’ protest “felt a little bit desperate”, and noted that the team had taken a QC, who was part of the hearing, to the race. “We don’t go racing with barristers,” he said. “It was a shame that it ended up there, but the stewards made the right call.”

Mercedes notified the FIA of its intention to appeal the ruling, buying itself more time, but ultimately backed down just hours before the FIA end-of-season gala and Verstappen’s formal coronation (for which neither Wolff nor Hamilton was present).

The FIA had by then confirmed that it would launch a full investigation into what happened in Abu Dhabi, but its claim that a “misunderstanding” had sparked such a fervent reaction from drivers, teams and fans left a sour taste for many. Mercedes said it would hold the FIA accountable for what happened through its investigation, while Wolff said he had “no interest” in talking to Masi. “It is up to the FIA to decide going forward how these decisions, how these situations, can be avoided,” he said.

Analysis: Why Mercedes chose not to pursue its Abu Dhabi F1 appeal

Hamilton led behind the safety car in Abu Dhabi, but the controversial restart procedure allowed Verstappen to snatch the crown

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

It was not the first time stewarding and decisions from race control had come into the spotlight in 2021, either. Verstappen’s move on Hamilton in Brazil, and the drama between them in Saudi Arabia, left many drivers confused over how far they could push each other. The returning Fernando Alonso had been vocal throughout the year about inconsistency by the stewards, even saying at one point there were “different rules for different people”.

The FIA has ended 2021 at a critical juncture when it comes to F1. Newly elected president Mohammed Ben Sulayem will face dealing with the Abu Dhabi fallout as one of his first tasks, but there will be wider conversations over the winter about the rulebook and how races are officiated.

F1 must not let the events of Abu Dhabi unravel the amount of positives coming out of 2021. The series has bounced back strongly after 2020 was ravaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the success of Drive to Survive’s third season on Netflix a key factor in bringing in new fans. The United States GP enjoyed a record crowd of 400,000 over three days, and the financial balance sheets make for encouraging reading.

But things aren’t about to get any easier for the F1 teams. A record 23-round calendar is planned for next year, crammed into just nine months to avoid a clash with the football World Cup, leading to concerns about burnout and the impact on personnel.

“We mustn’t neglect that we are a group of people and human beings travelling around the world,” warned Sebastian Vettel in October. “The objective should be [that] we have a sustainable way to run our season, not only for our environment but also looking at the human resource.”

There’ll be even more on-track action next year courtesy of the expanded sprint race format, which will be present for six rounds after F1 deemed its debut in 2021 to have been a success. While format tweaks are anticipated, there has been no major pushback from teams about continuing to stage them next season, even if reaction from fans at times has seemed lukewarm.

F1’s political landscape may have been a tale of two teams in 2021 but, as we enter 2022 and long-awaited new regulations that could lead to closer competition, the series as a whole faces wider questions over how a classic season with so much good could have ended in such controversial fashion.

Verstappen and Hamilton were the principal actors in 2021, but the role of their teams in the drama was just as significant

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images