All the tension, unpredictability and controversy of the 2021 season rolled into one race – that was the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. For two hours, chaos reigned on the lightning-fast street circuit along the Red Sea, with the inevitable protagonists Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. Wheel-to-wheel fights, one position change after another, race director penalties and a bizarre rear-end collision.
After their most dogged duel to date, with Hamilton in first place and Verstappen in second, this is the number of points separating the title rivals: zero.
It was already clear in advance that predictions in Formula 1 year 2021 are doomed not to come true. But no race can match the number of plot twists in Jeddah. Hamilton and his Mercedes were considered the big favorites: the high-speed course would have been made for them.
Forecasts in Trash
Those forecasts turned out to be in the trash can during qualifying on Saturday. Verstappen got the tires up to temperature under his Red Bull, and was on his way to an impressive pole position. Until in the last corner, while he was almost three tenths of a second ahead of Hamilton, he made a braking error and slammed into the wall.
Verstappen had to settle for third place on the grid. He kept it a day later at the start of the race. They raced the first laps around the circuit in quick succession: Hamilton, his teammate Valtteri Bottas, and Verstappen in third. This could well remain the ranking until the finish, because overtaking is difficult on the winding and tight course.
This orderly state of affairs did not last long, however. A red flag due to a crash by Mick Schumacher on lap ten set in motion an unimaginable chain of incidents. Verstappen took the lead through a devious tire change during the break, only to lose it to Hamilton on a near-collision and penalty on the restart – then regain it on another restart after another crash.
Flying debris
Then the most startling moments of the race were yet to come. Verstappen was in front, Hamilton just over a second behind him – the Dutchman on softer tires, which wore out harder than Hamilton’s as the laps passed. Hamilton had an excellent chance to overtake Verstappen on lap 37. Side by side they flew into the corner, where there was only room for one car. Hamilton had to swerve to the run-off lane, Verstappen too.
The Red Bull driver stayed ahead. But then due to an unauthorized defensive maneuver, the race officials ruled. Verstappen had to give up the lead to Hamilton. He did that by going off his gas. Hamilton saw the Red Bull slow down, went off the gas himself, downshifted – and suddenly slammed into the back. Although the debris flew around, both riders were able to continue.
Verstappen briefly drove away from Hamilton, but the Briton closed the gap again. After some pushing and pulling, Hamilton regained the lead. And this time definitively. He took a lead of more than six seconds and won. His third win in a row, and a vital one to keep a shot at the title. Verstappen finished second and was given five penalty seconds added to his time for the incident on lap 37.
In all the excitement, another issue gradually faded into the background: whether Formula 1 should actually race in Saudi Arabia. The country has been criticized for its appalling human rights situation. The regime uses prestige projects such as the grand prix to polish its image.
Lewis Hamilton had no intention of running the Saudi PR machine without murmuring. “Do I feel comfortable here? I wouldn’t say that,” he told reporters on Thursday. “But it’s not my choice to be here. That is what the sport has decided.”
Hamilton again rode with a rainbow-colored helmet. “When you read what the laws are here for the LGBTI community – quite frightening,” he said. “Whether it’s good that we’re here or not,” said Hamilton, “I think it’s important that we… [deze kwestie] trying to draw attention to it.”
The tens of millions of fans who followed the race on TV will have learned little from the ethical discussion surrounding racing in a totalitarian state. They only saw the slick decor in which the street fight between Hamilton and Verstappen took place. Hundreds of lights lit up the course in the evening darkness like a six-kilometer string of Christmas lights. The cars raced past and under brand new building complexes and skyscrapers made of glass and metal. Afterwards there was a drone show.
That while there was something to criticize on the finish of the race complex outside the view of the TV cameras. The construction of the circuit, which only started last spring, was a huge rush job. Footage from barely a month before the grand prix showed little more than a dusty ribbon of asphalt, fringed by heaps of sand and construction equipment. The pit building was just a concrete skeleton. During the race weekend, a pipe burst in the VIP area above Alpine’s garage, with sewage and toilet paper pouring from the ceiling of the pit box.
Report to stewards
The battle continued off-track on Sunday evening. Both Verstappen and Hamilton had to report to the stewards after the race to tell their story about the rear-end collision. “I really don’t understand what happened there,” Verstappen said. Hamilton was also full of incomprehension: “I really did not understand why he suddenly put on the brakes.”
Whatever the F1 referees decide, it will probably not change the outcome of the race. That means Verstappen and Hamilton both have 369.5 points, with one race to go.
A writer who devises that scenario is laughed at by his publisher: too unrealistic, the drama is very thick on top of it. But that the final race, next week in Abu Dhabi, will turn out to be an all-deciding winner-takes-all, isn’t a bad fiction – it’s the reality of the most heart-pounding F1 season in years.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of December 6, 2021
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