As the great Murray Walker used to say, “anything can happen in Formula 1 and it usually does”, but no one could have predicted what happened at last Sunday’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
This was the sport’s biggest race arguably since Brazil 2008 or perhaps even the Michael Schumacher days, with a global television audience enthralled by the conclusion to one of the most hotly contested season’s in history.
As a result, many of those tuning in were the most casual of casual fans while some were watching F1 for the very first time.
And on the face of it, what went down in those incredible final laps at Yas Marina was day, or night, light robbery.
Lewis Hamilton had led the race throughout, showing superior pace to Max Verstappen, and was destined to claim a record-setting eighth world championship in commanding fashion.
Instead, he would lose out to the Dutchman, who had a significant tyre advantage, on the final lap, this after the FIA had manipulated the running order for a Safety Car restart.
Unsurprisingly, the reaction was immense with accusations of a fix, or decision-making for TV/Netflix purposes or worse purely to stop Hamilton from becoming champion.
Certainly, it left a very sour taste in the mouths of everyone, unless you’re part of the Orange Army, and even for them, the crowning moment of Verstappen’s career was overshadowed by the pure incompetence of the FIA.
But while the FIA’s actions played a major role, other key moments culminated in presenting the opportunity for Max to snatch the title on the last lap.
As mentioned earlier, we should be in doubt that he was second best to Hamilton in the race, after losing the start the Red Bull simply couldn’t live with the pace of the Briton.
A gap of eight seconds shortly after the first pit stops highlighted just how much faster the Mercedes was.
But then comes the first key moment, Sergio Perez’s remarkable defence first on the straights to repass Hamilton into Turn 9, then taking a copy out of Lewis’ 2016 playbook by slowing up in Sector 3 and allowing his teammate to close back within two seconds by the time he was finally overtaken at Turn 6 on the next lap.
That crucial moment meant Mercedes then took no chances by opting to stay out under the Virtual Safety Car for Antonio Giovnazzi’s retirement, while Verstappen did stop for new hard tyres.
This then meant it was Max with the performance edge albeit not by enough to catch and pass, with even team boss Christian Horner admitting they needed a “miracle” heading into the final 10 laps.
That would come when Nicholas Latifi, who is a completely innocent party in all of this it should be said, crashed exiting Turn 14 with six laps to go.
In Race Control, there were many options open to race director Michael Masi and his team, with the Safety Car being deployed as the obvious first call.
As is the case in all forms of motorsport, a Safety Car, fairly or not, provides an opportunity to offer a big twist in a race, as it has done in Hamilton’s favour several times before.
At that point, with Verstappen having closed back to within the gap Hamilton would have needed to pit and resume ahead, Lewis and his team again decided to stay out on old hard tyres, while the Dutchman came in again for fresh softs.
As each lap passed under the Safety Car, the prospect was increasing of the championship being decided by the race ending under yellow, something the FIA was determined to avoid.
A red flag has since been mentioned as the option that could have been taken, but while it would have also equalled up the playing field tyre wise, it still would have led to a standing restart with Hamilton and Verstappen going head-to-head.
As it was, the track was cleared in time for one lap of racing, but this led to another dilemma, lapped cars.
With a restart also always providing an opportunity to attack, the rule on allowing lapped cars to overtake was brought in to stop drivers from being disadvantaged by being stuck behind cars they are not racing.
But to follow the exact rules on this would have then meant the race finishing under yellow as an extra lap is then required to allow those cars to catch back up.
To make matters worse, the Safety Car was over halfway around the penultimate lap with Masi facing pressure from Red Bull to ensure Verstappen had a fair run at challenging Hamilton at the upcoming restart.
It was then the call came, only allowing those cars between the two leaders to overtake and then foregoing the extra lap allowing them to catch up.
The last part of that is part of the rulebook, but pundits have often argued against needing to wait for the lapped cars when the circuit is ready to race, so is the extra lap really necessary? No.
But only allowing the five cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to pass has ultimately damaged F1 more than anything else.
It could have been easily avoided too, Race Control could have ordered the Safety Car to pull the queue of leaders aside and let all lapped cars through or told those ahead of Verstappen to pull aside on the start/finish straight at the restart.
Instead, the way the field was manipulated to create the last lap showdown has led to all the controversy.
Has one lap ever contained so much emotion? ?#AbuDhabiGP ?? @redbullracing pic.twitter.com/SY4oWS5qML
— Formula 1 (@F1) December 13, 2021
As for Verstappen having such a tyre advantage over Hamilton for that lap, that is not the FIA’s fault as it was Mercedes who decided to try and take the old hard tyres to the end.
And while it has been made to sound like Max had it easy on that final lap, he still made a bold overtake into Turn 5 and had to defend very hard all the way to Turn 9.
So, in the end, Red Bull got it right thanks to Perez’s hard defence and their pit-stops under the VSC/ SC to be in a position to capitalise on the final lap.
Of course, Mercedes are right to feel very strongly aggrieved by the actions of the FIA, and their inevitable appeal, after their protests were dismissed, should result in changes both to the rules and in the stewards’ room.
But while he wasn’t the fastest driver on the day, Max Verstappen was still a worthy winner of both the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and the 2021 F1 world championship.