How Perez's Hamilton defiance was vital to Verstappen's Abu Dhabi triumph

“It sums up the season a little bit.”

Max Verstappen was laconically commenting on Mercedes’ decision to protest – on two separate grounds – his victory in the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which handed him world title glory over Lewis Hamilton on the road. But considering all the race contained, the 90 minutes of action around the Yas Marina track were really the entire season in microcosm.

There was a passing controversy involving the title contenders, Red Bull and Mercedes furious with the FIA at separate points, amazing racing between Hamilton and Sergio Perez, tyre tactics and silly crashes. It really had all we’d seen before, plus new episodes that will live forever in F1’s memory and will be hotly debated in person, on the toxic wastelands of social media and, surely, in the courtroom.

It was a race of nine chapters, with one in particular proving pivotal in how the race – and championship – ultimately turned out.

Despite his grippier rubber, Verstappen couldn't take advantage at the start as Hamilton got the jump into Turn 1

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Chapter 1 – The start

By qualifying on pole thanks to a brilliant Q3 performance but having to start on the soft tyres due to a seemingly needless Q2 lock-up, Verstappen’s pre-race circumstances actually had him at an advantage for the start with the grippier tyres.

But he not only reacted slower to the lights than Hamilton, he immediately entered a wheelspin phase accelerating through his lowest two gears. That meant Hamilton was able to quickly pull alongside the Red Bull from second and easily sealed the lead at the left-hand first corner.

Verstappen’s soft tyres were, however, still a crucial factor, as he was able to feel the “benefit of that tyre” out of the new downhill Turn 5 left-hand hairpin at the start of the track’s second sector – per Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. Verstappen indeed rapidly closed in on Hamilton as they raced down the track’s main back straight, then sent a late lunge to the inside of the first part of the following Turns 6/7 chicane.

As Hamilton shot clear to a 3.4s lead by the end of the 10th tour there was a sense that Verstappen might die by the sword having lived by it all year in such wheel-to-wheel battles

There was a big gap for Verstappen to aim for, with Hamilton having left it open. He did hesitantly swing left when Verstappen approached but it was too late – the Dutchman got his front wheels ahead at the apex and then ran completely to the edge of the track. But unlike in Brazil and Saudi Arabia he critically kept two wheels on it, while Hamilton, having turned out of contact yet again in 2021, cut Turn 7 and retained the lead.

Red Bull and Verstappen were incensed, with race director Michael Masi satisfied that by slowing down once he’d cleared Turn 7 to only hold a 1.1s lead at the end of lap one of 58, Hamilton had given back any lasting advantage he’d gained.

It was an ultra-fine-margin call, where both sides could claim to be correct – the situation another example of F1’s runoff areas creating uncertainty in racing rules that are already far from clear. Not that it would matter given the drama that was to come, but as Hamilton shot clear to a 3.4s lead by the end of the 10th tour there was a sense that Verstappen might die by the sword having lived by it all year in such wheel-to-wheel battles.

Verstappen lunged up the inside of Hamilton on the opening lap, but the Mercedes man kept the lead by using the run-off

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

Chapter 2 – Red Bull’s stuck strategy

By lap 10, Verstappen had been telling Red Bull he was beginning to “struggle a bit” with his rears and he then indicated things had gotten worse on that front three tours later. And so, with Hamilton now 5.1s in front, Red Bull called Verstappen in to switch to the hards at the end of lap 13 – a move that was thought to be only fractionally slower than the medium-hard strategy Mercedes would be employing, but one that prevented any strategic flexibility even before Verstappen had lost track position on the first lap.

Mercedes was therefore able to pit Hamilton and cover Verstappen’s stop immediately with his own service for hards, with the early leader almost exactly maintaining his gap to his rival, who was at this stage struggling to follow Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr.

The Spaniard was running fourth in the opening stint having blasted by former team-mate Lando Norris in Turn 6 on lap one – the McLaren driver going off by himself at Turn 1 and dropping behind Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull. Verstappen was pushing on, running wide at the penultimate corner at one stage in his four-and-a-bit-lap pursuit before he got by at Turn 6 with DRS to the inside line.

Here, Red Bull had no strategy options for its contender, it could only somehow deploy Perez. And, a day after its qualifying tow tactics had played out very nicely, it did so very effectively.

Chapter 3 – Perez’s defiance

Perez stayed out on his starting soft tyres and frustrated Hamilton, costing him valuable seconds to Verstappen

Photo by: Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool

After being cryptically told he was being switched to “Plan B” by engineer Hugh Bird, Perez allowed Hamilton to rapidly close a 10.6s gap from the end of the Mercedes’ driver’s out-lap to nothing over the following five tours.

Bird then informed his charge “we’ll be looking to hold up Lewis” and on lap 20 Hamilton arrived. He used DRS to swoop ahead of the Mexican on the run to Turn 6, but Perez roared back to the inside to retake the lead. Hamilton powered by on Turn 7’s exit, but again Perez persisted and forced his way through a narrow gap near the barrier on the curved blast to the new Turn 9, long left-hairpin.

The gap between the title rivals was back to 1.7s having reached 8.7s the lap before Perez’s stout, thrilling and utterly fair defence began

“Back him up,” came the call from Bird, with the pair ending this lap in the 1m34s and 1m33s respectively (Hamilton did a 1m28.232s the lap before). Hamilton attacked again at Turn 1’s outside having called Perez’s actions “some dangerous driving”, but was rebuffed, before he used DRS again to get ahead towards Turn 6.

But this time he went around and all the way to the inside to ensure Perez finally had no fightback option and Perez indeed allowed Verstappen ahead towards Turn 9 on the next ‘straight’. The gap between the title rivals was back to 1.7s having reached 8.7s the lap before Perez’s stout, thrilling and utterly fair defence began.

“I think getting him back out of Turn 6 was the key to it,” Perez later reflected. “[I’m] just happy that it worked out because I could have cost him half a second at the time, but I'm just happy that I cost him a bit longer. It was a gamble. But it worked well.”

Just how well would be critical later on.

Hamilton drew away from Verstappen again on the hards, before Red Bull switched the Dutchman onto mediums during the VSC

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Chapter 4 – The VSC swing

In the next phase of the race, it didn’t seem as if Perez’s intervention would knock Hamilton off his world champion perch, as he quickly reasserted his advantage over Verstappen. In the 14 tours that followed him finally moving back to first place, he drew away again to reach a lead of 5.7s.

Then fate intervened somewhat. On lap 35, Antonio Giovinazzi capped a miserable double send-off at Alfa Romeo, as he stopped with a sudden gearbox problem nine laps after Kimi Raikkonen had been forced out by a wheelnut issue apparently causing severe car instability (that explains the Turn 6 off he initially thought was caused by a brake problem).

But Giovinazzi stopped a fair way past the marshals’ post at the exit of Turn 9 and Masi had to activate the virtual safety car while the Alfa was recovered.

Red Bull acted. It pulled Verstappen in at the end of lap 36 to take a cheap pitstop with the race neutralised and gain a tyre-life offset advantage over Hamilton, who Mercedes could not pit given the risk of sacrificing track position at a circuit that remains a big overtaking challenge despite all the changes ahead of this event.

After the VSC ended with Hamilton heading uphill towards the rapid Turn 2 left on lap 38, he then had a 16.4s advantage over Verstappen. But he had tyres that were over 24 laps older and with a gaggle of squabbling backmarkers to lap.

Following Verstappen's stop, Hamilton pressed on to stay out of reach from the Red Bull

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Chapter 5 – Verstappen’s charge stalls

Mercedes told Hamilton that Verstappen would have to average 0.8s each time by if he was to have a hope of getting back to the front by the finish. The leader had already expressed his concern about the hards lasting to the end even before Giovinazzi’s retirement shook things up, but he was left with little choice but to raise his pace accordingly.

"I wouldn’t have caught him. They just had too much pace in the car, even for me with fresher tyres. It just didn’t look like it was going to happen" Max Verstappen

Now back up to racing speed, Hamilton reached the 1m26s bracket having been running in the 1m27s before the VSC. Over the next 13 laps, Verstappen did eat into his lead, but only at 0.3s every tour to reach 11.9s behind at the end of lap 52 – a phase that included him setting the fastest lap at 1m26.103s on the 39th tour and the pair lapping the two Alpines, Daniel Ricciardo and Charles Leclerc, who had slid off wildly “surprised” by Verstappen when the Red Bull rejoined at the fast Turn 3 right after its first stop.

“I wouldn’t have caught him,” Verstappen later explained of his thoughts at this stage in proceedings. “They just had too much pace in the car, even for me with fresher tyres. It just didn’t look like it was going to happen.”

But fate intervened again. This time decisively.

Verstappen pitted for softs under the safety car, but Hamilton couldn't risk doing the same

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Chapter 6 – Latifi’s crash

On the 53rd tour, Nicholas Latifi crashed hard at the Turn 14 left that feeds out from under the sector-three straddling W hotel. The corner had been reprofiled for 2021 as part of the Yas Marina overhaul and is now much faster than before – but still tricky, as Raikkonen found to his cost in FP2.

Latifi was undone by the turbulent air coming off the Haas of Mick Schumacher, who had run him off track in defence as they raced through Turn 9 a few moments before, meaning the Williams also had less grip on dirty rubber.

“It was never my intention and I can only apologise for influencing and creating an opportunity,” Latifi later said. “But I made a mistake.”

The influence he’d created was that with such mess on the track, Masi had to deploy the safety car, which gave Red Bull a chance to pit Verstappen for a third time, with Mercedes still stuck and unable to bring Hamilton in for fear of giving up the lead. And it was because of Perez’s earlier defence.

“Without Checo I wouldn’t be sitting here,” Verstappen said in his post-race champion’s press conference. “Because then they would have had a pit gap with the safety car.”

That is debatable. Taking Verstappen’s deficit on the lap before he pitted to take softs and add that to the 7s he gained with Perez’s defence makes 18.9s. The fastest pitlane time of the day was Verstappen’s 21.152s at his first stop, which would cost a few seconds less than that on-track under safety car conditions. With the risk of a high-pressured stop going wrong, as has happened at Mercedes already this year, it just could not take the risk with a world title on the line.

Safety car initially looked to have won Hamilton the race and the title, before controversial restart

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

Chapter 7 – The safety car arguments

Initially, it looked doubtful the race would be able to get going again, but by lap 55 it was obvious the track would be cleared in time, as Latifi’s wreckage was craned away. Hamilton was at risk of Verstappen’s new-tyre potential, but there were still the lapped Norris, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel between them as they hadn’t pitted under the safety car (as Perez and five others in the pack did). Perez then retired in the pits because his “engine was on the limit and the last thing we wanted to have is a failure and then not have the opportunity for Max to have that lap” with the safety car period extended.

With two laps left, Masi initially decreed that the lapped cars would not be allowed to overtake, as typically happens ahead of a restart, with a message announced on the FIA’s timing system. Then, on the penultimate tour, following a lobbying call from Horner, Masi appeared to change his mind, saying “give me a second, my big one is to get this incident clear”. And suddenly Norris, the Alpines, Leclerc and Vettel were waved by Hamilton.

Mercedes feels, the race should have finished under the safety car. But it didn’t, with Hamilton and Verstappen jockeying ahead of a final lap blast to end this season of seasons

Mercedes was incensed, Toto Wolff calling Masi three times to no avail. This was the main thrust of its two post-race protests – that Article 48.12 of F1’s sporting rules states, “any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car” and “once the last lapped car has passed the leader the safety car will return to the pits at the end of the following lap”.

Therefore, Mercedes feels, the race should have finished under the safety car. But it didn’t, with Hamilton and Verstappen jockeying ahead of a final lap blast to end this season of seasons.

This was another bone of contention for Mercedes as it felt Verstappen had overtaken Hamilton under safety car conditions pre-restart by pushing his nose marginally in front at one stage. But the stewards later rejected this argument on the grounds “both cars were ‘on and off the throttle’” and that there were “a million precedents under safety car where cars had pulled alongside then moved back behind the car that was in front”, per their decision document.

On his fresh tyres, Verstappen blasted past Hamilton, who had no DRS with which to respond

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Chapter 8 – The final lap

Hamilton led Verstappen back onto the pitstraight and entered the final lap of F1 2021 with a 0.5s advantage. But his 43-lap-old (and pre-race scrubbed) hards were never going to resist Verstappen’s new softs.

At Turn 5, his first chance, Verstappen went for it. He shot to the inside and steamed by, Hamilton again perhaps leaving the door slightly ajar, although this is now a turn with a very late apex.

Verstappen then led his rival down to Turn 6 and the scene of their opening-lap clash – a minor controversy blip in comparison to the late-race hysterics. He weaved five times as he did so, perhaps fortunate to get away with such tactics. Then he stuck to the inside line on the curved run to Turn 9 and there won the title on the road when Hamilton, DRS-less all of the final lap per the rules, had no way by.

Verstappen won by 2.3s, Hamilton claiming “this has been manipulated” before silently returning to the pits and sitting motionless in his cockpit for two minutes as Verstappen celebrated in front of the packed grandstands – with more Dutch fans than British, it seemed – on the pitstraight.

“It’s unbelievable” he said there. “I mean, throughout the whole race I kept fighting and then of course that opportunity on the last lap, it’s incredible. It’s insane. These guys, my team, and Honda, they deserve it. I love them so much. I really enjoy working with them, already since 2016, but this year has been incredible.”

Verstappen later revealed that he had been in considerable pain during the final, thrilling lap, saying: “[I had] a massive cramp in my leg in that whole last lap. I was behind Lewis going through Turns 2, 3 and I had a massive cramp. I was like full throttle but barely just having the force to push anymore. I was happy that there was Turn 5 so I could brake and relax for a few seconds, and then back on it for the two long straights which is very painful. But for that last lap, you just bite through it. Insane emotions afterwards.”

Verstappen embraces his team after crossing the line

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Chapter 9 – Behind the scenes of controversy

Hamilton was utterly dignified in defeat, saying “a big congratulations to Max and to his team” as a first gesture in parc ferme. But after receiving the second-place trophy he returned to the Mercedes hospitality building and did not leave until he departed the track nearly five hours later.

As barrister Paul Harris QC, famous for working with Premier League football clubs, argued on its behalf, Mercedes privately stated its case as the race’s moral victor to reporters including Autosport in the paddock

In the meantime, his squad and Red Bull visited the stewards three times – twice to argue the merits of Mercedes two protests, lodged between Verstappen speaking to TV crews after the podium and before he faced the written press over Zoom, and once to hear the verdicts. As barrister Paul Harris QC, famous for working with Premier League football clubs, argued on its behalf, Mercedes privately stated its case as the race’s moral victor to reporters including Autosport in the paddock.

When final decision came, at 2215 local time, Horner and co walked from the steward’s office to Red Bull’s hospitality block, where cheers were already erupting.

The protests rejected – decisions Mercedes seems set to appeal at the time of writing – the assembled Red Bull squad streamed through its garage for a celebration photo. As they did, the music kicked into life from inside the pitbox. Queen’s We Are the Champions. What else?

Hamilton was dignified in defeat, but Mercedes plans to appeal the outcome of the race

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images