2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

The 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2021) was a Formula One motor race held on 12 December 2021 at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Contested over a distance of 58 laps, the race was the twenty-second and final round of the 2021 Formula One World Championship. The race decided both the Drivers' and Constructors' championships; Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton both had 369.5 points coming into the race. Hamilton led most of the race and appeared on course to win what would have been a record eighth World Drivers' Championship having taken the lead at the start of the race at turn 1 on the first lap, Verstappen won the race on the final lap with an overtake for the lead on title rival Hamilton, after a controversial safety car restart in the last moments of the race. The FIA thus conducted an inquiry into the race which led to a restructuring of race control including the replacement of Michael Masi as race director and amendments to the safety car rules. That inquiry subsequently concluded that the race officials had misapplied the then-regulations due to human error, but confirmed the results.

Verstappen's win secured his first Formula One World Drivers' Championship of his career by eight points from Hamilton, and Red Bull Racing's first since . Mercedes won their eighth consecutive Formula One World Constructors' Championship, setting a new record. The Grand Prix was also the final race for World Champion Kimi Räikkönen; the 42-year-old Finn retired from Formula One after a two-decade career spanning 349 Grands Prix starts.

Background

The race was originally scheduled to take place on 5 December, but it was rescheduled after the postponement of the Australian Grand Prix due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its original date was filled with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and the Australian race was eventually cancelled and replaced by the Qatar Grand Prix.

Circuit redevelopment

Yas Marina underwent redevelopment that shortened the track and the expected lap time in order to increase top speeds and overtaking opportunities. The chicane after turn 4 was removed, and the turn 5 hairpin (which was turn 7 before redevelopment) was widened. The four corner sequence of turns which was turns 11–14 became one banked turn 9. The radius of turns 12–15 (previously 17–20) were increased to allow cars to carry more speed, with the changes to turn 15 allowing cars to be able to travel flat out through the corner.

Entrants

The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list with no additional stand-in drivers for the race. Jack Aitken drove for Williams in the first practice session, in place of George Russell. Nikita Mazepin tested positive for coronavirus after qualifying, forcing his withdrawal from the race, he was not replaced.

The Grand Prix marked the last Formula One race for the World Champion Kimi Räikkönen, who had announced his intention of retiring at the end of the championship, ending his Formula One career after 19 seasons and moved to NASCAR Cup Series. , it also marked the last race for Antonio Giovinazzi, who moved to Formula E, and Nikita Mazepin, whose contract was terminated following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine and the cancellation of Uralkali's title sponsorship. It was also the final races for George Russell and Valtteri Bottas at Williams and Mercedes, respectively, as they moved to Mercedes and Alfa Romeo Racing.

Bottas raced with a special helmet for the occasion, featuring photos of all the moments he spent at Mercedes, and he sported a special set of blue racing overalls. Alpine featured the words "El Plan" in both their cars referencing a popular Internet meme. This race also marked the last race for Honda, as the Japanese company ceased their engine supply to the Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri teams, though they are set to provide assistance to Red Bull Powertrains, who take over the engine supply for the season.

Championship standings before the race and title permutations

Title rivals Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing) and Lewis Hamilton ( Mercedes) both entered the round with 369.5 points, leaving the championship contenders level on points for the final round for the first time since and for the second time in the sport's history. The Drivers' Championship was decided in the final round for the 30th time, and the first time since . The driver who scored the most points would win the championship; if the drivers had scored an equal amount of points, Verstappen would have won the championship due to having won more races (nine to Hamilton's eight) prior to this race. In the Constructors' Championship, Mercedes led with 587.5 points, 28 ahead of Red Bull on 559.5, with 44 still available; this was the first time since that the final round of the season decided the Constructors' Championship. In the midfield, Ferrari led McLaren in the battle for third place in the constructors by a margin of 38.5 points.

Acrimonious on-track battles throughout the season led to concerns that one of the drivers might cause a deliberate in-race collision in an attempt to win the championship: the championship battle between McLaren teammates Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost was decided by such an incident at the Japanese Grand Prix; the championship rematch, with Prost now at Ferrari, ended in Senna's favour with another collision at the Suzuka race; Michael Schumacher's collision with Damon Hill at the 1994 Australian Grand Prix took the Briton out of title contention in the season; and an unsuccessful collision caused by Schumacher against Jacques Villeneuve at the 1997 European Grand Prix led to the German driver's disqualification from the season. In response to the concerns, race director Michael Masi warned that Verstappen or Hamilton could be subject to further sanctions from the FIA if one of them decided to manufacture a deliberate race-ending collision in an attempt to engineer a favourable championship result, up to and including championship disqualification or future race bans.

Tyres choices

Sole tyre supplier Pirelli provided the C3, C4, and C5 tyre compounds—the softest selections available—for use in dry conditions.

Practice

Three practice sessions were scheduled over the course of the weekend. The first session took place at 13:30 local time ( UTC+04:00) on Friday 10 December. The second session took place at 17:00. The third session took place at 14:00 on Saturday 11 December. The first practice session passed without incident and ended with Max Verstappen setting the fastest time, followed by Valtteri Bottas and Lewis Hamilton. The second practice session ended with Hamilton fastest by 0.3 seconds to second-placed Esteban Ocon, while Bottas was third fastest ahead of Verstappen, 0.6 seconds behind Hamilton. Kimi Räikkönen crashed at turn 14 just as the session was concluding, but was unhurt.

Qualifying

Qualifying started at 17:00 local time on Saturday 11 December. The first qualifying session was briefly suspended after a Haas driver collided with a bollard but was resumed without further incident, with the Mercedes drivers of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas recording the fastest times of the session. In the second qualifying session, initial flying laps on medium-compound tyres gave Hamilton a four-millisecond advantage over Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen. A lock-up on his second flying lap led to Verstappen's return to the pits to change to soft tyres. At the end of the session, Verstappen improved to take first place on the timesheets, setting the time on the faster soft-compound tyres locked him into starting the race on Sunday, and Hamilton was likewise locked into using the more durable medium-compound tyres. In the third and final qualifying session, Verstappen was able to use the slipstream of his teammate Sergio Pérez to secure pole position for the race, with Hamilton only able to take the second spot on the grid.

Qualifying classification

;Notes
* – Nikita Mazepin qualified 20th, but he withdrew before the race as he tested positive for coronavirus. His place on the grid was left vacant.

Race

Race report

Start and opening laps

The race started at 17:00 local time on Sunday 12 December. Lewis Hamilton immediately took the lead from Max Verstappen on the race start, prompting Verstappen to attempt to regain his position at the turn 6 chicane. Verstappen's trajectory forced Hamilton off the track, and the Briton re-entered slightly further ahead of the Dutch driver than he was before the corner. Arguing that he should have ceded the position to Verstappen, Red Bull Racing protested the racing line taken by Hamilton, and were told by radio that Hamilton had ultimately given back any advantage gained. The incident was referred to the stewards, which concluded that no further investigation was necessary. Hamilton then utilised the durability of his medium-compound tyres to extend his lead over Verstappen, whose soft-compound tyres were suffering from greater degradation.

Pit-stops and virtual safety car

Verstappen made his stop at the end of lap 13 with Hamilton following suit one lap later, both opting for a set of the hardest tyres. The lead drivers pitting elevated Sergio Pérez to first, with the Mexican driver being informed his strategy was to hold up Hamilton to allow his teammate Verstappen to catch up. Hamilton caught up with Pérez on lap 20; a spirited defence from the Red Bull second driver allowed Verstappen to significantly close the gap from about 11 seconds after the pits to 1.3 second. Verstappen was unable to take advantage of it, with Hamilton's superior pace extending the gap to four seconds by the midpoint of the race.

On lap 26, Alfa Romeo's Kimi Räikkönen collided with the barriers at turn 6, prompting his retirement due to brake issues in his 349th and final Formula One race. On the same lap, George Russell retired in his final race for Williams due to gearbox issues. On lap 35, Antonio Giovinazzi retired his car alongside the track due to gearbox issues, which triggered a brief virtual safety car period. Red Bull used this opportunity to bring Verstappen in for a fresh set of the hard-compound tyres without losing track position; Mercedes, not wishing to give up track position, directed Hamilton to stay out. Using the advantage of fresher tyres, Verstappen gradually reduced the post-stop deficit from seventeen seconds to eleven, but not at a rate which would have been sufficient to catch Hamilton before the end of the race.

Final laps

On lap 53, a crash at turn 14 for Nicholas Latifi, who was fighting for position with Haas' Mick Schumacher and had dirty tyres after going off circuit at turn 9, brought out the safety car. Hamilton again stayed out without pitting because he would have lost track position had the safety car period not ended, while Verstappen pitted behind him for a fresh set of the softest available tyres. Pérez retired under the safety car due to oil pressure. After Verstappen's pit stop, he retained second, but with five lapped cars (those of Lando Norris, Fernando Alonso, Esteban Ocon, Charles Leclerc, and Sebastian Vettel) between himself and Hamilton (in first). As the debris from Latifi's crash was being cleared by the race marshals, the lapped drivers were initially informed that they would not be permitted to overtake. On lap 57 Masi gave the direction that only the five cars between Hamilton and Verstappen were to unlap themselves.

Immediately after Vettel passed the safety car to join the lead lap, race control announced the safety car would enter the pits at the end of the lap to allow for a final lap of green-flag racing, leading to angry remonstrations from Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. On the final lap, Verstappen used his fresh soft tyres to pass Hamilton into turn 5 to take the lead of the race. He held off counter-attacks from Hamilton to win the race and his first World Drivers' Championship, with Hamilton in second and Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz Jr. in third. AlphaTauri driver Yuki Tsunoda finished in a career-best fourth place. Mercedes gained enough points to win their eighth consecutive Constructors' title, extending their own record. Over the radio, Wolff appealed to Masi to reinstate the order of the penultimate lap, to which Masi gave the reply: "Toto, it's called a motor race, ok? We went car racing."

Race classification

Notes
* – Includes one point for fastest lap.
* – Sergio Pérez was classified, as he completed more than 90% of the race distance.
* – Nikita Mazepin withdrew before the race as he tested positive for coronavirus. His place on the grid was left vacant.

Safety car controversy

Michael Masi was involved in a safety car procedure controversy during the last laps of the race. On lap 56 of the race, during which Hamilton was leading, Masi allowed only the five cars directly in front of championship contender Verstappen to unlap themselves before the restart. The race restarted, and on the final lap of the race, Verstappen overtook Hamilton and won the 2021 World Drivers' Championship.

Mercedes' post-race protests

Mercedes protested the race result, alleging that Verstappen had overtaken Hamilton during the safety car and that Masi violated safety car procedure by allowing the cars directly in front of Verstappen to unlap themselves, and no others, and that according to regulations the restart should have occurred the following lap, which would have resulted in Hamilton's victory. While the first issue was dismissed because Verstappen was not ahead at the end of the safety car period, the second issue was more contentious, with Mercedes retaining legal counsel for the protest. Mercedes argued that if a message for lapped cars to overtake is issued under Article 48.12, then all lapped cars are required to unlap, and that the safety car was required to wait until the end of the following lap to return to the pit lane; if this process was complied with, Mercedes submitted that Hamilton would have won the race and therefore the championship, and requested that the classification be amended as such. Red Bull argued that a) the regulation stated "any cars", not "all cars", were required to overtake under Articles 48.12; b) 48.13, which governs the withdrawal of the safety car, overrides Article 48.12; c) Article 15.3 gives the race director overriding authority over the use of the safety car; and d) the race result would not have changed if all eight lapped cars were permitted to unlap. Masi argued that the principle behind Article 48.12 was to remove cars which "interfered" with drivers racing on the lead lap and that all teams had agreed in principle that all races should end under racing conditions.

The stewards dismissed the protest on the grounds that, according to article 48.13 and 15.3 in the Formula One sporting regulations, the race director has the "overriding authority" to amend any rule regarding safety car procedure as they wish, and to declare Hamilton the winner for leading at lap 57 would retrospectively shorten the race. With the protests dismissed, Verstappen was provisionally confirmed as the world champion, pending any appeal. Mercedes lodged their intention to appeal to the FIA's International Court of Appeal citing potential breaches of Article 15 of the International Sporting Code and Article 10 of the FIA's Judicial and Disciplinary Code, with the team given 96 hours after the race has concluded to decide whether they wish to take the matter further.

Mercedes lodged their intentions to appeal the ruling. Following the FIA's announcement that it would conduct a "detailed analysis and clarification exercise" of the incident and its admission that the controversy was "tarnishing the image" of the sport, Mercedes decided not to pursue their appeal, and announced the discontinuation of their protest on 16 December, several hours before the submission deadline. Amongst the reasons to discontinue, Wolff said that neither he nor Hamilton wished to be awarded the drivers' championship in court, and instead would focus their efforts in to ensuring an equitable result from the FIA's investigation into the sporting code. Wolff remained heavily critical of Masi's direction of the race—in particular, Wolff criticised Masi's decision in Abu Dhabi as being inconsistent with a decision at the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix, where Masi cited the need to let all cars unlap to extend a safety car period—and both he and Hamilton boycotted the FIA Prize Giving Ceremony that evening. Hamilton was later fined for not attending; he asked the FIA to donate the fine as contribution towards the work the body carries out with underprivileged children. The statement also fuelled speculation that Hamilton could announce a snap retirement after being disillusioned by the race's events, although Wolff indicated both he and his driver would continue in the sport after a period of reflection in the off-season.

Race reactions and commentary

In the immediate post-race interview, Hamilton and his father Anthony congratulated Verstappen and his family on his first World Drivers' Championship.

Several drivers criticised Masi's decision which was seen as a divergence from standard safety car procedure. In a last-lap radio message to his race engineer Peter Bonnington, that was not played on the television feed, Hamilton said the race result had been "manipulated". Russell, who was signed to be Hamilton's teammate at Mercedes in 2022, called the race finishing decision of race director Michael Masi "unacceptable". Norris, who was situated at the front of the five cars permitted to unlap, said the decision to go racing again on the last lap was made "for TV", and Alonso, Ocon, Leclerc, and Vettel, the drivers of the other four cars in the pack, also expressed confusion at the sudden instruction to unlap. Daniel Ricciardo, who was situated immediately behind Verstappen during the safety car period and was not permitted to unlap himself, said he was "speechless" at the instruction, especially as it did not allow him to also race the five-car pack on newer soft-compound tyres, and Sainz Jr., who was positioned behind Ricciardo and Lance Stroll's cars upon the restart and was under pressure from Yuki Tsunoda, Pierre Gasly, and Valtteri Bottas, opined that the decision to resume racing under the circumstances "nearly cost im hispodium". Speaking at Aston Martin's 2022 car launch in February 2022, Lance Stroll described the Abu Dhabi situation as "ridiculous" and that rules should be set in stone before a season starts.

Masi's decisions were criticised on social media and by racing drivers as unusual and to contrive excitement. world champion Damon Hill commented that the decision appeared without precedent, stating that it was "a new way of running the sport, where the Race Director can make these ''ad hoc'' decisions". Former world champion Nico Rosberg felt that Masi "did not follow the rules", and said that Christian Horner demanding "one more lap of racing" to Masi via radio was inappropriate, but sympathised with Masi, commenting: "He's got the whole world watching and he has to decide in the next 15 seconds what he’s doing." Writing for Fox Sports, Jack Austin stated that Formula One "engineered" the finish to increase viewer excitement. Jordan Bianchi of ''The Athletic'' echoed a similar sentiment, suggesting that Masi's decision was to ensure that "Netflix gets another juicy storyline for the next season of '' Drive to Survive''", and also questioned his capability in effectively officiating a race.

The fairness of Masi's decision in changing safety car procedure was also disputed. Swedish former racing driver, Stefan Johansson, commented: "Whether it’s intentional or not, the entertainment value of this controversy has gone through the roof. But I think there has to be a balance somewhere because the decisions Masi made...completely ignored any level of common sense as to what would have been a fair way to handle the situation". India's first Formula One driver, Narain Karthikeyan, also questioned the concept of fairness: "It was a great battle for the championship but what happened yesterday it wasn't sport. You need close battles in Formula One but it has to be fair at the same time...What happened was not fair". German former rally champion, Walter Röhrl, called for races to be decided on the track or in a "fair, clear process that is not influenced by any opaque external decisions". Dutchman and former Formula One driver, Christijan Albers, also raised the issue of fairness: "Michael Masi seemed a bit unsure at a few races last year. He made some ambiguous decisions. But he certainly played a decisive role in the final leg of the season, which left many in bewilderment. Everyone wanted the season finale to be fair". Writing in ''The Times'', Matt Dickinson agreed the officiating process should be thoroughly reviewed, he rejected complaints that the decision could have been made for entertainment on the grounds that "rules in sport are contrived — and frequently tweaked to make a sport more entertaining — and we should not pretend that there is only one perspective of justice, or that sport is an endless pursuit of fairness." Labour peer and vice-chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Formula One, Peter Hain, commented that the events at the finale was not good for the sport. Hain said: "It may be exciting and it may be dramatic, it may gain the audiences that Formula One craves, but you have to think of the credibility and the integrity of the sport in the longer term...the FIA can't afford to have Formula One tarnished in this way".

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