2021 Saudi Arabian GP: Post Race Analysis

One of the craziest and dirtiest races in recent Formula 1 history. Commenting initially on the new track, it has to be said it is pretty impressive watching an F1 car do a lap on maximum attack. Extremely fast, and quite narrow so it looks spectacular and the drivers seem to enjoy it. However, almost everyone could see how dangerous this track is, especially when a bunch of cars are on track at the same time. It was evident in the first F2 race that the vehicle recovery was appalling and no improvements were made for the Formula 1 race as 2 red flags took an extended amount of time.

As for the race itself, the FIA can claim how the fans won by seeing such an eventful race, but any true race fan has to be disturbed by how much the FIA play a result in each race, and of course the championship.

Mercedes came in as the favorites, and perhaps left as even stronger favorites. The perfect start had Mercedes controlling the race, Bottas doing a perfect job in keeping Verstappen behind but not losing touch with Lewis, all until the inevitable safety car was deployed. Bottas clearly deliberately slowing down Max is supposedly against the rules, yet didn't even get noted. Some bad luck hit Mercedes when a Red Flag was called late, thus allowing the Red Bull to have a free change of tires. It's one of the stupidest rules in F1 to allow a team to repair a car and/or change tires during a Red Flag. It should be said, the Red Flag was the right call, as the barriers were compromised in a spot where several accidents have happened during the weekend. Fortunately for Mercedes, they were able to get good starts, particularly Hamilton who might have had the best start in history off the dirty side of the track. This may have partially been because of Mercedes deliberately driving slow to the grid, causing Max's tires to cool down. Was this illegal? Maybe not as supposedly the drive to the second restart was technically not labeled a "formulation lap". Lewis clearly had the lead into turn 1 which gives him right to the driving line. What was never mentioned was Lewis never even attempted to take the driving line, he missed the apex by a mile turning into the middle of the corner, and straight-lining his car to the turn 2 inside curb. No matter what this would have left Max with no place to go, but did jump the curb and took the lead off the track so it isn't surprising he was forced to give the position back. However, we saw a worse situation with Stroll taking a position off track on lap 1 despite having more room than Max did, and it was ruled okay. It could be argued that Masi should have restarted the race under the safety car rather than a standing start given pretty much every start between F1 and F2 has caused accidents, but I suppose it is preferred to do a standing restart. Fast forward to when Lewis collided with Verstappen. Very strange, and its seems very likely that the drivers were playing games. Regardless, Verstappen initially slowed down in a controlled fashion, Lewis admitted he saw that and his onboard even shows him braking and downshifting behind Max. Why did he not go by? For all he knew, Max had an engine problem. Any race car driver will blow by a slowing car without hesitation, unless there is a flag or instruction to stay behind. There was absolutely no reason for Hamilton to follow Verstappen's path and slow down the same. If Verstappen's telemetry proves he did not deliberately and abruptly brake check Hamilton, then Lewis should in fact be given a penalty for causing a collision. Mercedes still should be confident as even with a damaged car, Hamilton was easily able to put in the fastest lap of the race. Bottas, seemed to get the full power on the last lap and was able get in there for a hugely valuable podium.

Red Bull will leave Saudi Arabia with a bitter taste without a doubt. First throwing away pole in the last corner. The free pitstop for brand new hard tires and restarting first, just to throw that away on the launch. Getting a second chance, this time with mediums and Max amazingly going from P3 to P1 only to have that fall apart. Such a shame for Perez who did a miserable job in Q3 and just bad luck in the race. Was Verstappen over the line? Perhaps. Absolutely extremely aggressive. The 5 second penalty seemed harsh and very unclear as to why it was given. Max overtook off track on the first restart, but gave the position back. Max defended his P1 position by forcing Lewis off track, but unquestionably made the attempt to allow Hamilton by, in which Lewis failed to just drive by him. After being clubbed in the back, Max still allowed Lewis to go by in which he immediately overtook him again. To me this is well within the rules based on where the DRS detection zones were placed, should not fault the driver for being clever. Besides, Lewis left the inside open. Either way, Max allowed Lewis by later anyways. So why the penalty? It wasn't for brake checking as that is under investigation. If Max is proven to be guilty of a brake check, he will deserve a post race penalty, even if that collision could have been avoided by Lewis not driving up the backend of Max's car. All of this may be moot as it seems like Verstappen's medium tires were not going to last the whole race anyways. But how much was that down to damages caused in the collision. Of course Christian Horner will claim there was plenty of damage.

Alpine so close to another podium. A brilliant drive by Ocon. Some will say he should have defended Lewis harder, but fighting the inevitable would have only hurt his race. Alonso was a magician in the opening laps but lost his mojo and struggled for the rest of the race.

Mclaren got a strong result with Ricciardo. Keeping Bottas behind for so many laps was a good effort. Lando seemed to get caught out by the Red Flags and just never had the track position. Still was able to get a point though.

AlphaTauri and Gasly in P6? No way! Back to form for him. Tsunoda crashing and ruining someone else's race. Back to form for him too.

Ferrari won't be happy with a 7-8 finish. The car was much better than that. The safety car and red flags hurt their positioning too. Some teammate battle showed up but the team shut that down and tried to get the lead Ferrari to move forward and it just never worked out. Credit to Sainz for scoring good points from a bad starting position, but definitely benefited from some other's misfortune.

Alfa Romeo in the points with Giovinazzi finishing 9th. Managed to get his car into Q3 so deserving for sure. Tough day for Kimi as it seemed like Vettel drove through him into the corner.

Aston Martin had a qualifying session to forget, so P11 for Stroll can be somewhat satisfying, but it's not points. Vettel was looking really good at one point until he was taken out by Tsunoda and then slid his way into Kimi which ultimately scattered enough parts all over the track to force a DNF.

Williams didn't look very good in the race. Latifi had his best chance at a good result with so many cars out of the race, but P12 was all he could do.

Haas had some scary crashes. Mazepin crashing into Russell showed the dangers of such a narrow track. Schumacher didn't appear to make a mistake, it just seemed like the car didn't have the rear grip with the full fuel load. Expensive day for them.

Driver of the Day: Esteban Ocon. Despite the pure speed of the leaders, they both drive dirty at times and made mistakes. Ocon however was clean and did the best he could in a car that should have fell well outside the top 5. A few meters from getting a podium, a well earned DOTD.

 

The problem with the official FIA report, the onboard videos, and the internet telemetry is that it doesn't show at what point this 69 bar of brake pressure was applied. That's far more important than the 2.4g figure they throw out. Max decelerated from 304 kph to 108 in a very short distance. Just lifting off the throttle at 300 kph will result in well over 1g of deceleration. 2.4g is less than half the braking capabilities of an F1 car and that could have been a spike the moment Verstappen applied the brakes at around 300 kph.

To be considered a brake check, Max's telemetry would have to show a significant brake pressure spike just before being hit by Hamilton. We don't have that information. We do know Max was in the process of braking, and Lewis Hamilton accelerated just moments before colliding which would affect the closing rate between the cars which was very very close as Hamilton chose to effectively "tail gate" Max. We also didn't see any brake lock up from either car, which is quite easy to do at speeds below 160 kph. Obviously Lewis' brakes wouldn't lock up as he was in the process of accelerating.

Neither driver can be considered innocent here.

What is annoying to hear is people claiming Lewis was confused and maybe thought it was a Safety car or VSC. Sorry, that's ridiculous. There was no yellow lights on the wall, no yellow flag, no warning light on his dash, and no message from his team. Hamilton had a good 7 seconds to recognize that Max was slowing down and that there was no signs of a caution being out. Any F1 driver is capable of making decisions in fractions of a second, someone as experienced as Lewis surely could make a conscious decision of what to do in those 7 seconds.