Formula One News

For years Formula 1 fans had been yearning for a championship that is decided at the season finale. It went a notch higher on Sunday with the title rivals battling it out till the very last lap. The final act of 2021 had excitement, controversy, jubilation and despair in abundance and also a decent sum of stats and facts. Here are all the numbers from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Max Verstappen won his tenth race of 2021 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and in turn, became the 34th driver to win a world championship. He is Formula 1’s first Dutch champion and the first non-Mercedes driver to win the title in the turbo-hybrid era. Verstappen had always been touted by many to become the youngest world champion in the sport since debuting in 2015 at the tender age of 17. He could have done so had he won last year, nevertheless at 24 years and 66 days, he is Formula 1’s fourth-youngest champion after Sebastian Vettel, Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso. 

(Motorsport Images)

Verstappen’s win from pole meant each of the last seven races in Abu Dhabi has been won from pole position. The Dutchman snatched the lead on the final lap of the race, making it the first time since Austria 2016 that a race has been won with a last-lap overtake. He also joined Hamilton and Vettel as the only drivers to have won at Abu Dhabi on multiple occasions. After making it to the rostrum 18 times this year, Verstappen broke the record for the most podium finishes in a season. He is now one win away from becoming the second-most successful driver in the hybrid era with 20 race wins currently, tied with Nico Rosberg.

Verstappen’s victory brought Red Bull’s 75th win in Formula 1 and ended the team’s 8-year wait for championship glory. Sergio Perez aided his teammate by holding up Hamilton in the middle stages of the race but eventually retired on lap 55 with an oil pressure issue. The last time the Mexican suffered consecutive retirements was back in Monaco-Canada 2014. Honda’s swansong race ended just the way they’d have liked with the team tasting title success for the first time since Ayrton Senna in 1991. Verstappen became just the fourth different driver, after Nelson Piquet, Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost, to win a championship with the Japanese manufacturer. Honda are now level with Ferrari for the second-most victories in the hybrid era as an engine supplier (17). 

(Motorsport Images)

But Red Bull weren’t the only team who had a reason to celebrate on Sunday. Mercedes were crowned Constructors’ champions for the eighth successive time, a record that will take some doing to beat. It’s the first time since 2008 that both championships were split between two different teams. Hamilton seemed set for a record-breaking eighth title up until lap 54 but eventually fell short after the safety car period, coming in second to Verstappen. The Brit racked up eight wins, five poles, and 17 podiums over 22 races with a points tally of 387.5 points. Interestingly, Hamilton hasn’t won the title in his last year with any teammate. 

The title battle and late-race controversy overshadowed Carlos Sainz’s podium-winning performance. The Spaniard started fifth and seemed set for a P4 result but Perez’s DNF in the dying stages put him in podium contention. He recorded his fourth podium of 2021 and sealed his best year in Formula 1 with 164.5 points and fifth in the standings. Despite it being his maiden year in red overalls, Sainz did exceedingly well to edge out Lando Norris (four podiums and 160 points) and teammate Charles Leclerc (1 podium and 159 points). The icing on the cake for Sainz is that he’s the only driver to finish each and every race in 2021. It was his 29th successive race finish and 15th consecutive one in the points. Ferrari clinched third in the Constructors’ standings beating rivals McLaren by 48.5 points with 17 double-points finishes, the most by any team this year. The Italian team went winless in successive seasons for the first time since 1992-93, but their results this year will give them a sense of confidence going into 2022.

(Motorsport Images)

McLaren’s drivers finished P7 and P12 bringing an end to a difficult second-half of the season, barring Italy which was their only major high. The Woking-based squad recorded just four double-points finishes since Belgium and will rue the fact that they lost third in the standings to Ferrari. Daniel Ricciardo has been blowing hot and cold in the second half of the season in terms of results, having either finished in the top-5 or out of the points altogether.

AlphaTauri started the race from P8 and P12 and applied different strategies to finish fourth and fifth, the first double top-5 result for the Faenza-based team. With P4, Yuki Tsunoda registered his best race finish in Formula 1. It was also the best result for a Japanese driver since Kamui Kobayashi came fourth at the 2012 German Grand Prix. 

(Motorsport Stats)

Of the five DNFs on Sunday, four were from the Williams and Alfa Romeo camps. Kimi Raikkonen bid farewell to the sport in the most unfortunate manner, retiring halfway into the race. The Finn ended his illustrious career with 353 entries, 21 wins, 18 pole positions, 103 podiums and one drivers’ title in 2007. George Russell, who will switch to Mercedes in 2022, failed to finish his last race with Williams due to a gearbox problem. Coincidentally, Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas also retired from their final race appearances with their respective teams (Brazil 2012 and Abu Dhabi 2016), before moving to Mercedes the following year.

(Motorsport Stats)

Lastly, the Yas Marina Circuit was heavily renovated ahead of the season finale to improve the chances of overtaking. But Sunday’s race didn’t notice any drastic increase in the number of passes. The average overtakes ratio at Yas Marina was 27 before the finale, and the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix witnessed just 20 on-track passes over 58 laps.

by Sundaram Ramaswami
Twitter/Instagram - @f1statsguru