The five best race drives of F1 2021

While all eyes were on the championship fight between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, the 2021 Formula 1 season wasn't short on quality throughout the field.

From drivers getting the maximum out of midfield equipment, to unseen runs to head the best-of-the-rest battle and punchy drives battling drivers in faster machinery, the class of 2021 turned in some stellar performances.

Autosport selected the pick of the drives that earned a maximum score in its post-weekend F1 driver ratings features in 2021, presented below in no particular order.

Sebastian Vettel - Monaco GP (5th) 

Vettel's overcut after saving tyres in the opening stint helped him to a superb fifth in Monaco

Photo by: Erik Junius

The Monaco Grand Prix is famously challenging, with forward progress far from guaranteed given that passing is essentially impossible. But Sebastian Vettel pulled off an excellent race to rise up the order and, in the process, beat the driver who nearly won the world title in what was very close to being the season’s fastest package. 

Vettel qualified eighth – the best result to date of his first year with Aston Martin – and ran seventh behind Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly during the early stages, all three boosted by Charles Leclerc’s non-start. When Mercedes brought Hamilton in just past the one-third mark, as the first driver to pit, AlphaTauri immediately covered him with Gasly, while Aston gave Vettel a further lap on the soft tyres.

After saving tyre life while sitting behind Hamilton, Vettel unleashed his full pace and was able to jump ahead of both rivals when he emerged from his stop for hard rubber. His rise against Gasly was sealed by a close but “hard but fair” (said Gasly) move near the barriers entering Massenet. Although Sergio Perez leapfrogged all three in his own overcut with the much faster Red Bull, Vettel held off Gasly to the finish to take a fine fifth.  

Lando Norris - Austrian GP (3rd) 

Norris kept Hamilton at bay for 16 laps and only lost out on second to Bottas for a controversial penalty

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Although this was a race that Max Verstappen dominated, it shouldn’t be forgotten that McLaren’s Lando Norris came within 0.048 seconds of beating him to pole and was a threat to the Red Bull driver at the start. 

Norris picked up a contentious penalty in a Turn 4 clash with Sergio Perez following the safety car restart (one we still disagree was worthy of sanction, and the same goes for Perez’s first clash with Leclerc at the same corner later in the race). Afterwards he was a serious problem for both Mercedes drivers as Verstappen scampered clear. For 16 laps he held up Lewis Hamilton, who hailed “great driver” Norris after he’d finally battled past.  

After his penalty was applied at his stop, Norris dropped behind Valtteri Bottas because of the extra five-second hold. But he was homing back in on Bottas even before he caught back up to the two Mercedes after Hamilton’s kerb strike caused left-rear brake aerodynamic damage, which skewed his handling and forced Mercedes into reversing the order of its cars to preserve second place. He repassed Hamilton before his fellow Briton pitted for balance alterations, and stayed third to the finish, where Norris was livid that his penalty had cost him a shot at second position.

Max Verstappen - Dutch GP (1st)

Verstappen delivered under huge pressure at his home race

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

While Max Verstappen was tremendous throughout his first title-winning campaign, he had two races up for consideration on this list. His Mexican GP triumph, which featured the passing move of the season around the outside of the two Mercedes drivers at Turn 1, only narrowly misses out because it was a race where Red Bull was expected to dominate, and he duly did once he was in the early race lead.

At Zandvoort, finally making its appearance back on the F1 calendar, things were ultra-close with Mercedes, although Verstappen’s Red Bull did ultimately have a slight pace edge. Add in the incredible level of home support for the Dutchman, and the expectation that came with it, and this was far from a given for the 24-year-old. 

But he was pretty much faultless all weekend, other than running wide at Hugenholtz on his final lap in Q3. In the race, he aced the start, which was crucial to his victory, then controlled things at the front ahead of the relentless Lewis Hamilton. He didn’t get knocked off his stride when Mercedes tried strategic variation as the only way to disrupt things, or when Valtteri Bottas was employed as a (pretty ineffective) rolling roadblock. 

Charles Leclerc - United States GP (4th)

Leclerc was faultless in Austin, where he pulled away from the McLarens and came close to stealing third late on

Photo by: Ferrari

Several of Charles Leclerc’s race performances were candidates for this list. His brilliance in the wet at Imola, where he drove away from Sergio Perez in the much faster Red Bull, was ruined by the red flag, while in Spain he outqualified and beat Perez again and also ruined Valtteri Bottas’s chances with his brilliant around-the-outside pass at Turn 3 on lap one. Then there’s his near-victory at Silverstone ahead of a charging Lewis Hamilton after the title contenders collided, a drive that included having to manage an intermittent engine-mapping-management problem. 

Leclerc picked that race as his best of the year because it was “a big surprise for everyone, to be so competitive” and, while it ended up being his top result, we feel his essentially faultless drive at Austin was even better.  

Leclerc had qualified just 0.1s slower than Bottas, and moved up to fourth when the Finn’s grid penalty was applied. He fell back from the lead fight as would be expected, but simply drove away from Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren with a performance he felt was a series of qualifying laps from start to finish. His pace was so strong that he even briefly looked like he’d close on the sick and under-hydrated Perez for third late on.

Lewis Hamilton - Sao Paulo GP (1st) 

Hamilton had to charge back through the field in the Interlagos sprint, then did it again in the race after his engine change penalty

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

While it’s interesting to consider that only a perceived injustice brought out Hamilton’s absolute best in 2021 – something the rest of the field should take note of for 2022 – the way he responded to his Interlagos qualifying disqualification was sensational. 

After starting last in the sprint race, he gained five places on the opening lap, then 10 more with a series of passes to end up fifth. The highlight was his late dive on Lando Norris, where the McLaren driver resisted fighting too hard. 

But Hamilton had to go back to 10th for the start of the second race due to taking the new internal combustion engine, which did provide a power boost through its freshness. He made short work of rising up the order to trail Max Verstappen. He chased him through two pitstops and, despite all the excellent passing he’d already produced, he had to be at his best to get past a rival who refused to play by acceptable sporting rules – permitted to do so by a lack of intervention from the officials.

Verstappen’s aggressive Turn 4 defence late on meant Hamilton stayed second, but he learned from the incident, got the Red Bull to react as he wanted to the second time, and then positioned his car to ensure that a famous pass and victory were sealed.

After passing Verstappen, Hamilton streaked to a memorable victory

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Honourable mentions

Only narrowly missing out on this list were the following drivers and drives.

Daniel Ricciardo was brilliant in taking a famous Monza win after Hamilton blew the sprint race start and Verstappen doing likewise in the GP let the McLaren driver in. That led to a nail-biting first stint where Ricciardo defied his former team-mate and his much faster car, that crash between Verstappen and Hamilton after the lead Red Bull’s pitstop went wrong, and Ricciardo leading home Norris. The Briton looked to have superior pace before he accepted second, wary of the consequences of the Verstappen/Hamilton battle he’d seen in his mirrors.

There was also Carlos Sainz Jr’s excellent races in Turkey and Abu Dhabi. In the former, the Spaniard had to start 19th due to taking a new engine so he could finally run Ferrari’s upgraded hybrid system and he produced pass-after-pass to rise to eighth. He did tag Vettel as they scrapped over 10th, which might’ve been penalised (although rightly wasn’t). In Abu Dhabi, he was fractionally outqualified by Norris and Perez, but battled by the McLaren on the first lap and was then in control as best-of-the rest from there – gaining the final podium spot when Perez retired under the controversial late safety car.

Many of Pierre Gasly’s best performances in 2021 came in qualifying the AlphaTauri where it had no real right to be, and while he did so again in Mexico, his race drive there was really superb. He gained a spot when Bottas was spun around by Ricciardo on the opening lap and then was unflustered in staying ahead of the Ferrari duo for the rest of the race. That he did so all the while managing the brake and engine cooling demands at the high-altitude venue without going wrong adds to his credit.

Fernando Alonso’s best stint of 2021 undoubtedly was his defence against Hamilton that won team-mate Esteban Ocon the Hungarian GP. The returning F1 veteran was so good in placing his car to defy the Mercedes for 10 laps it rightly goes down as one of the best moments of the season, if not the best. But his performance all weekend in Qatar was better and in the race he delivered the first podium of his comeback. He outmuscled Gasly on lap one and then showed great pace while pulling off the very tough one-stopper after Verstappen had come by, taking third ahead of the charging Perez – albeit helped by the late virtual safety car following the spate of punctures.

Alonso was superb on his way to Qatar podium, pulling off a tricky one-stop to secure his first F1 rostrum visit since 2014

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images