2021 Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

2021 Formula One Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.jpg

Who will win the 2021 World Championship?

  • Max Verstappen

    Votes: 1,428 62.8%

  • Lewis Hamilton

    Votes: 845 37.2%
  • Total voters
    2,273
  • Poll closed .
Formula 1 enters the season finale of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with the driver’s championship leaders tied on points.

After a roller coaster ride of a season in F1, the final event of 2021 will be held in Abu Dhabi and will decide the championship battle between Max Verstappen or Lewis Hamilton. The two drivers are even on points entering the race.

Verstappen has won more races this year than Hamilton, so if the two end up finishing even after this race due to neither scoring points, the championship would go to Verstappen. Momentum seems to be with Hamilton after back-to-back-to-back race wins in Brazil, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, though points momentum has never lasted long this season.

The Yas Marina circuit is a location where both drivers have won in the past, with Hamilton having won numerous times at the track, and Verstappen being the most recent winner. The layout has been altered for 2021 to encourage more overtaking.

Looking away from the feature act of this race weekend, the constructor’s battle between Mercedes and Red Bull seems to be all but decided, with Mercedes holding a 28-point advantage. With Hamilton and Verstappen cancelling each other out on points, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have been involved in a lower profile battle than their teammates, but one full of surprises just the same.

This will also be the last time we see certain drivers in F1, or the last time we see them with their current teams. Perhaps the biggest departure is Kimi Räikkönen, who will retire from driving after Abu Dhabi. Kimi’s teammate, Antonio Giovinazzi, will also vacate his F1 seat after this season and will race in Formula E next year instead. One of the Alfa Romeo team seats will be filled by Bottas, who will finish this year third in the driver’s standings. His current seat at Mercedes will be filled by George Russell.

This looks to be an exciting finish to a season filled with drama and shocking moments. Let’s hope that we see the best from each of the championship contenders this weekend.

Qualification Results​

1Max VERSTAPPENRed Bull1:22.109
2Lewis HAMILTONMercedes1:22.480
3Lando NORRISMcLaren1:22.931
4Sergio PÉREZRed Bull1:22.947
5Carlos SAINZFerrari1:22.992
6Valtteri BOTTASMercedes1:23.036
7Charles LECLERCFerrari1:23.122
8Yuki TSUNODAAlpha Tauri1:23.220
9Esteban OCONAlpine1:23.389
10Daniel RICCIARDOMcLaren1:23.409
11Fernando ALONSOAlpine1:23.460
12Pierre GASLYAlpha Tauri1:24.043
13Lance STROLLAston Martin1:24.066
14Antonio GIOVINAZZIAlfa Romeo1:24.251
15Sebastian VETTELAston Martin1:24.305
16Nicholas LATIFIWilliams1:24.338
17George RUSSELLWilliams1:24.423
18Kimi RÄIKKÖNENAlfa Romeo1:24.779
19Mick SCHUMACHERHaas1:24.906
20Nikita MAZEPINHaas1:25.685

Race Results​

1Max VERSTAPPENRed BullLAP 58
2Lewis HAMILTONMercedes2.256
3Carlos SAINZFerrari5.173
4Yuki TSUNODAAlpha Tauri5.692
5Pierre GASLYAlpha Tauri6.531
6Valtteri BOTTASMercedes7.463
7Lando NORRISMcLaren59.2
8Fernando ALONSOAlpine61.708
9Esteban OCONAlpine64.026
10Charles LECLERCFerrari66.057
11Sebastian VETTELAston Martin67.527
12Daniel RICCIARDOMcLaren+1L
13Lance STROLLAston Martin+1L
14Mick SCHUMACHERHaas+1L
15Sergio PÉREZRed BullDNF
16Nicholas LATIFIWilliamsDNF
17Antonio GIOVINAZZIAlfa RomeoDNF
18George RUSSELLWilliamsDNF
19Kimi RÄIKKÖNENAlfa RomeoDNF

What are your thoughts on the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix? Let us know on Twitter at @RaceDepartment or in the comments section below!

Photo credits: Red Bull Content Pool
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Enthilzha
Colt459 said:
No, because as 15.3 states, the RD has “overriding authority“ over the safety car. He has authority to override those rules, as confirmed by Masi, and as confirmed by the FIA.

15.3 is a rule-breaking rule.
Click to expand...
I think you are misunderstanding me. I know full-well that they are using 15.3 as a rule-breaking rule and maybe they are technically within their rights to do so, but even if that is the case, it doesn't mean that they should, that it is fair in this situation or that it would be fair on any team to operate like this in future.

How could any team know when the FIA is suddenly going to use it's rule-breaking rule at any moment, how could they possibly plan for a situation in which new rules can be invented on the spot?

The standard procedure in this situation was very clear and yet the FIA have basically said "but we are allowed to make any rule up at any time to suit us and ignore every regulation or established precedent."

I know I certainly don't want F1 or any sport I love to go down the path of breaking and making rules on the spot - and I cannot imagine how you could possibly compete under such conditions.
 
Durge Driven
JayOTT said:
I believe MotoGP is highly underrated as a series. Half the field can realistically win on any given Sunday, and nothing is truly certain until the checkered flag. The junior classes have also historically been treated better than F1's own support series, to the point of being considered world championships in their own right.
Click to expand...

Next year is 6 chassis and 6 engines will be 20 riders within 1 second
If every bike ran well no mistakes they all finish on same lap as well
 
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Enthilzha
LMGiorni said:
Comparing Football with this just is not understanding the sport.
This is much more similar than Tennis games, you can fight each game almost to your opponents' Advantage but the board will say 6-0 / 6-0 / 6-0.
The result doesn´t do justice some times and in Motor Racing, this happened a lot of times, if not a SC is an engine Failure, is a Blown tire as happened with Max in Azerbaijan almost at the end of the race, where before was Stroll incident and there was expecting a Red FLag as the incident involved a Blown tire but only happened after Max tire exploded giving a chance to Hamilton to reduce the distance to Checo and fight for the win. Sadly he made a stupid mistake and lost it.
Click to expand...
I fully understand both sports and the situation is comparable. We are simply talking about a circumstance in which one participant/team is dominating and clearly going to win but the outcome is manipulated at the end to contrive an exciting finish.

I actually used tennis as an example before and likened it to being 6-0,6-0,5-0 and 40-0 up (in the final of Wimbledon) and the umpire suddenly saying "next point wins" and taking your racket away.
 
Enthilzha
Colt459 said:
He told the clerk to bring in the safety car under 15.3, which introduces 14.13, which overrides 14.12.
Click to expand...
But nowhere does it say it overrides the issue of unlapped cars - 14.13 relates only to the timing of the safety car being brought in.
 
Colt459
Enthilzha said:
I think you are misunderstanding me. I know full-well that they are using 15.3 as a rule-breaking rule and maybe they are technically within their rights to do so, but even if that is the case, it doesn't mean that they should, that it is fair in this situation or that it would be fair on any team to operate like this in future.

How could any team know when the FIA is suddenly going to use it's rule-breaking rule at any moment, how could they possibly plan for a situation in which new rules can be invented on the spot?

The standard procedure in this situation was very clear and yet the FIA have basically said "but we are allowed to make any rule up at any time to suit us and ignore every regulation or established precedent."

I know I certainly don't want F1 or any sport I love to go down the path of breaking and making rules on the spot - and I cannot imagine how you could possibly compete under such conditions.
Click to expand...
How could they possibly know doesn’t apply here. Listen to the Mercedes onboards. They assumed a Race would restart and they still chose not to pit. They also assumed the cars would be unlapped and told Lewis they would be unlapped before correcting it to they won’t be unlapped and then finally correcting it again for the actual unlapping.

Mercedes made all their decisions before they knew anything. So their planning did not come into account.
 
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W
Enthilzha said:
I fully understand both sports and the situation is comparable. We are simply talking about a circumstance in which one participant/team is dominating and clearly going to win but the outcome is manipulated at the end to contrive an exciting finish.

I actually used tennis as an example before and likened it to being 6-0,6-0,5-0 and 40-0 up (in the final of Wimbledon) and the umpire suddenly saying "next point wins" and taking your racket away.
Click to expand...
I wouldn't go that far.
This is more an instance of "Fergie Time":

A plays B, and they're tied on points at the top of the table on the last day of the league! It's 2-1 to team A, but B only needs a draw to win the league.
5 minutes added time announced, but someone from team A has gone down with injury 2 minutes in, and they've used all their subs! This player takes 5 minutes to be removed from the field. Team B have a corner in the 97th minute, and eventually score the equaliser.
 
L
Enthilzha said:
I fully understand both sports and the situation is comparable. We are simply talking about a circumstance in which one participant/team is dominating and clearly going to win but the outcome is manipulated at the end to contrive an exciting finish.

I actually used tennis as an example before and likened it to being 6-0,6-0,5-0 and 40-0 up (in the final of Wimbledon) and the umpire suddenly saying "next point wins" and taking your racket away.
Click to expand...
Not comparable because in Tennis that would not happen as the same in Football. So clearly you are comparing things that are way in the opposite direction.
As I said, could give you a false impression as I stated on the tennis board that one did not have any chance to win.
But in F1 you need to finish the race to win, in between the start and crossing the line you can loos whatever advantage or position you have.
Is not the same as tennis, football, basket, etc.
Its a race and to win you have to cross the finish line in the first position. An example would be in Saudi Arabia Esteban Ocon lost the podium in the straight before crossing the finish line, it's unfair for him because he did everything right but DRS is allowed and Bottas easily passed him.

The finish line is the marker, you lose or you win but you need to cross it first.
 
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Enthilzha
Scottt said:
I'll answer it the other way (which I think is more important).... Do I think it's unhealthy for a sport to have it's rule and regulations not be followed to 100% the letter of the regulation 100% of the time; and my answer would be no I don't necessarily think that it's unhealthy.

Formula1 doesn't want it's title decided under a Safety Car. They said as much before the race. So they did whatever they possibly could to avoid that situation, which ended up giving Max a huge advantage in one race. I don't know if they absolutely violated the letter of the law, in my opinion they seem to have, but an argument could be made the other way. And you could argue that not making Lewis give that spot up after lap one didn't follow the letter of the rule either, your not suppose to gain a lasting advantage, which he arguably did (and I really don't want to argue it either way). I don't think this hurts F1 in the long term. I don't think it really hurts them in the short term. I think the hyperbole here is bordering on the absurd.

Parallels to other sports simply don't work. In motor racing you can get huge advantages from things that are beyond your control that just doesn't happen in other sports. Look at Imola and try to draw a comparison to another sport. Or Spa. Or Hungary. Or Baku. You can't draw comparisons to football or tennis.
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I would argue in the case of F1 (or any sport) that you would need a very good reason indeed to break your own rules; either where safety would be a concern or a situation was blatantly unfair or absurd in a way that the regs were clearly not intended to support. But to break your own rules simply to engineer an exciting finish I don't find nearly a good enough reason.

My point is that they can probably get away with it this once (though I think there will be consequences for Masi and changes in regulations) and even gain because of it, but if they were to continue to do so, then it would not take long for fans to lose trust in the integrity of the sport and fair competition.

Parallels do work here - in any sport you could conceivably overlook who the clear winner is going to be and engineer a tense finish. It doesn't matter that the sports are very different (which they are), the principal remains the same. Also, I think you are not entirely correct by assuming that huge advantages/disadvantages occuring beyond your control do not happen in other sports.
 
Enthilzha
Colt459 said:
It said so in the FIA ruling itself.
Click to expand...
I stand corrected.

But don't you think it is very odd to take a regulation (48.13) that deals only with the timing of withdrawal of the safety car and use it to override a seperate issue on unlapped cars in part of 48.12? Sure, (though I think it's an example of the FIA allowing itself to change the rules on the fly) they can argue that this overrides the timing of withdrawal of the SC in 48.12, but surely not the unlapping of cars also.
 
Enthilzha
Colt459 said:
How could they possibly know doesn’t apply here. Listen to the Mercedes onboards. They assumed a Race would restart and they still chose not to pit. They also assumed the cars would be unlapped and told Lewis they would be unlapped before correcting it to they won’t be unlapped and then finally correcting it again for the actual unlapping.

Mercedes made all their decisions before they knew anything. So their planning did not come into account.
Click to expand...
They had no way of making a decision when they did know everything, as it was far too late by then. They could only make a decision based on what they believed most likely to happen according to the rulebook. Red Bull, by contrast had nothing to lose - they were about to lose and they knew that just maybe they might get a big piece of luck.
 
W
Enthilzha said:
I stand corrected.

But don't you think it is very odd to take a regulation (48.13) that deals only with the timing of withdrawal of the safety car and use it to override a seperate issue on unlapped cars in part of 48.12? Sure, (though I think it's an example of the FIA allowing itself to change the rules on the fly) they can argue that this overrides the timing of withdrawal of the SC in 48.12, but surely not the unlapping of cars also.
Click to expand...
As I've said earlier, I'm actually more surprised that they didn't just use 48.8a as their reasoning:

48.8 With the exception of the cases listed under a) to h) below, no driver may overtake another car on the track, including the safety car, until he passes the Line (see Article 5.3) for the first time after the safety car has returned to the pits.
The exceptions are:
a) If a driver is signalled to do so from the safety car.

There's no specifics on why a driver would be signalled to do so, and if it was in relation to other articles, generally they are specified.
 
S
Enthilzha said:
Parallels do work here - in any sport you could conceivably overlook who the clear winner is going to be and engineer a tense finish. It doesn't matter that the sports are very different (which they are), the principal remains the same. Also, I think you are not entirely correct by assuming that huge advantages/disadvantages occuring beyond your control do not happen in other sports.
Click to expand...
But they don't work between the sports. Draw a parallel Hungary and a tennis match... you can't the twio sports are incompatible. Or Imola and golf... Again, you can't. Or Baku and polo.

I don't know of another sport where things that are completely beyond your control can have such a large impact on your game and a sport that such scenario's happen as much as they do in motor sports. If that Laitifi crash happens a lap earlier, the results are likely the same and there would be little question of a rule violation.
 
Colt459
Enthilzha said:
I stand corrected.

But don't you think it is very odd to take a regulation (48.13) that deals only with the timing of withdrawal of the safety car and use it to override a seperate issue on unlapped cars in part of 48.12? Sure, (though I think it's an example of the FIA allowing itself to change the rules on the fly) they can argue that this overrides the timing of withdrawal of the SC in 48.12, but surely not the unlapping of cars also.
Click to expand...
I think you see the inherent problem with trying to make a rule system. There will be unforeseen conflicts. I would bet no one in the RD room knew the exact concepts involved as we nitpick them now but knew they had some discretion to alter SC for a race finish.
 
W
Enthilzha said:
They had no way of making a decision when they did know everything, as it was far too late by then. They could only make a decision based on what they believed most likely to happen according to the rulebook. Red Bull, by contrast had nothing to lose - they were about to lose and they knew that just maybe they might get a big piece of luck.
Click to expand...
They knew what they needed to at the time, which was "Safety Car deployed"
 
Enthilzha
LMGiorni said:
Not comparable because in Tennis that would not happen as the same in Football. So clearly you are comparing things that are way in the opposite direction.
As I said, could give you a false impression as I stated on the tennis board that one did not have any chance to win.
But in F1 you need to finish the race to win, in between the start and crossing the line you can loos whatever advantage or position you have.
Is not the same as tennis, football, basket, etc.
Its a race and to win you have to cross the finish line in the first position. An example would be in Saudi Arabia Esteban Ocon lost the podium in the straight before crossing the finish line, it's unfair for him because he did everything right but DRS is allowed and Bottas easily passed him.

The finish line is the marker, you lose or you win but you need to cross it first.
Click to expand...
It is comparable - we know that Hamilton did finish the race and would have finished in first had the established rules been adhered to. The fact that they weren't adhered to is what ultimately changed the result.

I, of course understand that something unlike other sports might happen such as a breakdown or crashing out on the final corner and that is, of course, perfectly okay even if it were to happen to someone leading the race by 10 laps. I remember Mansell's tyre exploding in Australia when he seemed a cert for the championship as a good example of this.

Anyway, the latter circumstance is very different to rules and precedents being changed in a single moment as happened here.
 
L
Enthilzha said:
It is comparable - we know that Hamilton did finish the race and would have finished in first had the established rules been adhered to. The fact that they weren't adhered to is what ultimately changed the result.

I, of course understand that something unlike other sports might happen such as a breakdown or crashing out on the final corner and that is, of course, perfectly okay even if it were to happen to someone leading the race by 10 laps. I remember Mansell's tyre exploding in Australia when he seemed a cert for the championship as a good example of this.

Anyway, the latter circumstance is very different to rules and precedents being changed in a single moment as happened here.
Click to expand...
So why did you call for the SC when the incident with Latifi was the cause that Hamilton lost.
You are not telling all the story, just cherry-picking.
 
Colt459
Th
Enthilzha said:
They had no way of making a decision when they did know everything, as it was far too late by then. They could only make a decision based on what they believed most likely to happen according to the rulebook. Red Bull, by contrast had nothing to lose - they were about to lose and they knew that just maybe they might get a big piece of luck.
Click to expand...
They had no clue whether Safety Car would end. No one did. They made a “most likely” decision and lost. Which is true under many SC, including the VSC earlier. I agree RB had little to lose.
 
Enthilzha
Scottt said:
But they don't work between the sports. Draw a parallel Hungary and a tennis match... you can't the twio sports are incompatible. Or Imola and golf... Again, you can't. Or Baku and polo.

I don't know of another sport where things that are completely beyond your control can have such a large impact on your game and a sport that such scenario's happen as much as they do in motor sports. If that Laitifi crash happens a lap earlier, the results are likely the same and there would be little question of a rule violation.
Click to expand...
Sure, as I said, it happens particularly often in motor racing, but to suggest that this never happens elsewhere is obviously wrong. I remember Daley Thompson's pole in the Decathlon suddenly snapping during his attempt and costing him the Olympic or World title (I forget which), or a cyclists wheel suddenly falling off at the start of the Time Trial final at the last Olympics, or many athletes whose hamstring suddenly and unexpectadly go 'ping' at exactly the wrong moment, or Spurs scoring a goal which was clearly in the net against Man UTD but being ruled out and changing the course of the match, or the football side who hit the side-netting and the ball going through a little hole in the net and a goal being awarded, or the golfer whose ball is picked up and flown away from the hole by a seagull...
 

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