Lewis Hamilton’s incredible insight into how the Abu Dhabi GP went was revealed recently on UK TV. More than seven months after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the final round of the 2021 Formula 1 season, where he lost the world title on the final lap to Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton admits he has not yet come to terms with the controversial race but says it made him stronger.
The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the 22nd and final round of the 2021 Formula One season, took place on 17th December 2021. It was to be an exceptional race, as it was the epilogue to the battle for the world championship between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, who arrived in the United Arab Emirates with the same number of points.
Starting from second on the grid, Lewis Hamilton got off to a better start than Max Verstappen and took the lead from the first corner. Throughout the race, the Briton set a hellish pace that the Dutchman was unable to follow. With a gap of more than 12 seconds between the two men, the race was turned upside down with only five laps to go. Nicholas Latifi’s Williams lost control of his car at turn 14 and hit the safety rail.
The crash inevitably led to the Canadian’s retirement, but also to the intervention of the safety car. Max Verstappen took advantage of the neutralisation of the race to put on new tyres in the pits, unlike Lewis Hamilton, who remained on the track on very worn tyres.
While the Grand Prix was due to finish under the safety car, i.e. without the drivers being allowed to overtake each other, race director Michael Masi decided to play loose with the ruling as he was attempting to obey the agreement between all teams ahead of the GP that the race must finish under green flag conditions if possible, and restarted the race for a single lap finale.
Unable to resist Verstappen’s fresh tyres, Lewis Hamilton was passed by the Dutchman in the final corners of the Yas Marina circuit, and saw his eighth world championship title slip away, despite having dominated the entire race. The unexpected decision regarding the race direction changed everything in Hamilton’s quest for the world title. An act considered an injustice by ‘King Lewis’, who remained silent for many weeks after that evening.
Invited by Channel 4 Sport to speak about the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2021, Lewis Hamilton confided that he had still not digested its outcome:
“Abu Dhabi will always remain with me,” said Hamilton.
“When you work very hard in a certain way and it ends like that it can be a traumatic experience so I think it will stay with me. I would say it made me stronger and I remembered the strength I already had in me. It’s not something I think about all the time to be honest,
“I’m one of those people who look forward. I’m grateful because I love my job, I love this sport and I feel supported in this sport. And I’m also happy to see the changes that are starting to happen gradually.”
I have always felt that, given the situation that arose, the only fair resolution of it would have been to red-flag the race and declare the result (retroactively) to be the finishing order that prevailed at the conclusion of the lap before Lafiti crashed and caused the chaos that ensued.
As it happens, that would have been a favourable outcome for Hamilton, but that’s not the point. I dislike both Hamilton and Verstappen in equal measure so I favour neither of them.
What, ultimately, was important was the integrity of the race itself and of those organising it.
Most people, however grudgingly at the time, could accept, on reflection, that that way of doing it would, in the final analysis, have been the fairest thing to do. Anything else was always going to give rise to a festering, insoluble dispute – and so it has proved.
The FIA screwed up.
Nothing new really, but surprising he still hasn’t fully got over this long afterwards.
BTW, December 12 was the race day.
the problem with this is that neither Lewis nor Max did anything wrong in that race that would justify changing the result.
then you can still discuss how the race management and team bosses have behaved. In my view, the only right thing to do would have been to remove the entire race from the results.
Furthermore, I believe that at least the right driver has become WDC considering the whole season
Somebody should tell Lewis, Max, the FIA, in fact everyone, a title is not won or lost in the last lap, or last race. It’s lost over a season.
I wish they’d all grow a pair and stop whining.
You know what’s unfair, the President of the FIA disqualifying Senna after winning the 1989 Japanese GP when Prost attempted to crash in to him. Between the two FRENCHMEN, they colluded to gift the title to Prost!
If Mercedes had been more proactive, they’d have changed Lewis’ tyres and taken advantage of the situation.
Ferrari has rightfully received flak for some of their strategy this year whereas RBR still push ahead yet Mercedes never got criticised at all for their mistake. Serves their entitled arrogance
Great answer Lewis! Its done and in the history books. Lewis has also made history over his tenure. Life is not always fair and neither is F1.
Can we not just drop this.. look a dead horse lets go beat it.
Everyone is missing the point; the final race should not have been a decider, because Lewis should have been disqualified at Silverstone after causing that horrific crash…..Mercedes should not have been allowed to fix his car, so the points gap would have reflected the true nature of the competition.
As much as some want to shut discussion down, Abu Dhabi remains unfinished business. The fact that the Masi determined the result of the race and then the stewards rejected the Mercedes appeal resulted in the anointing of a fake WDC. Both drivers deserved to win the WDC at the start of the race, but Lewis would have clearly won the race if it wasn’t for the intervention of Masi. We need accountability and transparency from the FIA and the race result to be reviewed such as jointly awarding the WDC to Lewis.
What’s the difference with silverstone’s GP last month? There is a safety car situation, some go in for tires others don’t.
Only thing you can blame Masi is that he first doesn’t want to pass anyone and then decides a lap later to send those who drive between 1 and 2.
If Masi had immediately decided to send everyone through, there would have been two more laps to race. It certainly didn’t deserve a beauty prize, but to say that things have been cheated on a large scale. Who are you kidding besides yourself?
And as I’ve said before, Mercedes had time and opportunity to react to Max but gambled and lost.
And I feel bad for Lewis. Based on the race, he should have won the race there.
I think he didn’t deserve the WDC. (Imola where he gets a free lap back after being in the tire stacks) (Silverstone, whose penalty is still way too light for me)
But that’s my opinion
Well said and totally agree