Lewis Hamilton Wins the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Let’s Break Down the Insane Chaos That Happened in This Race

What. A. Race.

Bryn Lennon - Formula 1. Getty Images.

Today's race was the second to last race of the 2021 F1 season and everything was on the line in the championship battles. Max Verstappen entered today's race in Saudi Arabia eight points ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton has won the last two races and has been steadily cutting away at Verstappen's lead. This season's Driver's Championship battle has been tight and contentious all year. Hamilton and Verstappen have been going wheel to wheel not holding anything back and it's led to some extremely dramatic moments so far this season. But nothing this season has topped all of the drama that went down today. Let's break it all down.

Mark Thompson. Getty Images.

This weekend was the debut event for the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Saudi Arabia. They literally just finished building the street circuit this month, so both drivers and fans had very little idea how this whole weekend would play out. The one thing that every single person said this weekend about the track was that it was very tight and very FAST. There were tons of straightaways and high-speed corners with very few run-off areas if the drivers made a mistake. If you made one mistake on this track it could mean disaster which is exactly what happened in qualifying. 

Verstappen and Hamilton were battling each other to take pole position at the end of qualifying on Saturday, both looking like they were on a different level. Hamilton put in the fastest lap near the end of the session and it was down to Verstappen's final lap to see if he could beat it and start Sunday's race in first place. He was at the end of the lap and was ahead of Hamilton's time but ended up smoking a wall on one of the final corners, leaving him starting Sunday's race in third place.

Sunday's race starts with Hamilton and Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas on the front row with Verstappen right behind them looking to get a jump on them at the start of the race. Despite how much potential for chaos there was at this track, the start of the race was relatively quiet with Hamilton and Bottas managing to hold back Verstappen the first few laps. Then all hell broke loose when Haas driver, Mick Schumacher, sent his car into the wall on lap 10.

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The safety car came out and almost everyone on the grid decided to use this as an opportunity to make their pit stop for the race. Hamilton and Bottas came into the pits for Mercedes, but Verstappen and Red Bull took a massive gamble and decided to stay out, moving him up into first place ahead of Hamilton and Bottas. That gamble immediately paid off when a few laps later they red-flagged the race to replace the barrier that Schumacher hit, which meant all of the cars headed into pit lane. Crucially, the teams are allowed to change their tyres during a red flag while they are in the pit lane. Verstappen was able to hold onto first place and still change his tyres, a massive win for Red Bull and a huge swing in the race.

The race restarted and we were thrown back into the chaos immediately. Verstappen basically bullied his way into the first corner sending his car in super late into the corner running wide off the track to hold onto the lead ahead of Hamilton and Estaban Ocon. Several moments later, Verstappen's teammate, Sergio Perez, clipped Charles Leclerc which lead to a pile-up of cars that had nowhere to go on the tight track. Thankfully everyone was ok, but the race was stopped again sending everyone back to pit lane. This is when we got one of the most fascinating and confusing sequences of events. 

The FIA who oversees the race was investigating Verstappen's move on the first corner of the restart and determined that he illegally stayed in first place, gaining an advantage by running off the track. New this year to F1 is that the TV broadcast lets us hear the conversations between the teams and the FIA where they plead their cases or fight back against penalties, etc. It is fascinating. We get to see the equivalent of Bill Bellicheck on a call yelling at Roger Goodell over a pass interference foul, trying to make his case for his side of the story while the game is still going on. The FIA and Red Bull were negotiating with each other during the red flag and eventually agreed to have Verstappen give back the places when the race restarted. So for this third race restart, Verstappen would be behind Ocon and Hamilton.

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The race restarted again and Verstappen showed off his balls of steel and sent it up the inside on turn one quickly going from third to first place. It was an unbelievable move, Verstappen was in first place, but there was a lot of race left. Hamilton went to work chasing after Verstappen, but several other crashes kept halting his progress because a yellow flag would come out to clean up debris meaning he couldn't pass or gain time on Verstappen. Finally, Hamilton caught up to Verstappen and the two went into turn one side by side on lap thirty seven.

Verstappen clearly sent it up the inside on Hamilton and gains an advantage by going inside on the second part of the corner, staying in front of Hamilton. Verstappen has done this countless times now this season on Hamilton. Verstappen thrusts himself into the corner even if he is a bit behind, forcing Hamilton to make the decision to either crash into him or swerve out of the way losing the position. It's a very, very fine line of what is a racing incident and what is reckless in F1 and Hamilton felt like this was reckless. 

This corner might be one of the most defining moments of the entire 2021 season because it kicked off a wild chain reaction of events. The FIA deemed that the move was illegal and told Verstappen to give the place back to Hamilton, the team immediately went and told Verstappen to give the place back but to give it back strategically. Verstappen immediately started to slow down because he was at a perfect place to give the spot back to Hamilton but set himself up to pass him on the next straightaway. While all of this was happening, the FIA was in the middle of telling Mercedes that Verstappen was going to give back the place, so Hamilton had no idea why Verstappen was slowing down in front of him and end up crashing into the back of his car. I audibly gasped when this moment happened. No one had any idea what was going on and why the two collided. 

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Hamilton thought that Verstappen pulled an illegal move "brake testing" him because he had no idea that Verstappen was trying to let him go around. Verstappen also was moving around a bit and not making it entirely clear what he was doing. Mercedes immediately hopped on the radio to the FIA and were explaining that Hamilton had no idea what was going on because they were literally in the middle of being told about the place swap when it happened. Hamilton was lucky that the front wing of his car wasn't too damaged and didn't have to go into the pits for a new one. It was high drama and unbelievable chaos unfolding live between the drivers on track, the teams, and the FIA. No one knew what was going on including the FIA who were trying to untangle this mess, everyone yelling at each other over the team radios. 

The FIA eventually told Verstappen that he had to give back the place to Hamilton despite Red Bull arguing they already tried and Hamilton just didn't take it. Verstappen eventually conceded but pulled off the original move he was trying to set up before on Hamilton where he let Hamilton past him, then immediately passed him again to take back first place on the next straightaway. That's when the Stewards and the FIA got involved again and gave Verstappen a five-second time penalty for the original turn one incident with Hamilton, ending his bid to finish in first place.

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Hamilton eventually passed Verstappen on lap forty three because Verstappen's old medium compound tyres were losing grip compared to Hamilton's hard compound tyres which are made to last longer. Hamilton eventually cruised to an easy victory and Verstappen finished in a comfortable second place despite the five-second time penalty. No one finished this race happy. Hamilton, Verstappen, Red Bull, and Mercedes were all pissed off at the FIA and each other continuing to make petty comments and blame each other in the post-race interviews. Verstappen in his post-race team radio was throwing shots at the FIA. 

Meanwhile, Hamilton was happy he won but clearly was still frustrated with Verstappen for his super aggressive style of driving. It was a very hard-fought victory for Hamilton who prevailed through all of the chaos. This makes it three wins in a row for the seven-time world champion chasing his record-breaking eighth world championship. Verstappen and Hamilton are now tied in points heading into the last race of the season this upcoming weekend. Twenty-one races into the season and the two title contenders are tied with one race to go, you can't script a season better than this one. Next Sunday is the Super Bowl of F1 and is lining up to be one of the best battles in the history of the sport. 

For most of this race, there was so much drama between Hamilton and Verstappen that they barely showed any of the other cars on track, but the last lap of the race gave us an awesome battle between Ocon and Bottas for third place. They didn't even show this on the broadcast, they were too busy showing Hamilton and Verstappen. I love this title fight as much as the next person, but I watch Formula One for all of the battles up and down the grid, so it's super frustrating when they don't show dramatic endings like this just to show close up shots of Hamilton and Verstappen after they've already finished.

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Despite all of the controversy, a very successful weekend for Mercedes with a double podium. They pull twenty-eight points ahead of Red Bull in the Constructor's Championship, giving them a fairly comfortable lead going into the final race unless something major happens to both Mercedes cars on Sunday. That would be eight world championships in a row for Mercedes, talk about a dynasty. Ferrari has also pretty much secured third place in the Constructor's Championship, a great rebound season after last year's disastrous season. 

Update: Verstappen was eventually handed a ten-second time penalty for the move where Hamilton ran into the back of him. Luckily for Verstappen he finished well ahead of Bottas in third, so he keeps second place and stays tied with Hamilton for the lead.

This race had everything, hard wheel to wheel racing, controversy, and chaos. The pure racing fan part of me wishes that it would have been a cleaner race and that the FIA wasn't playing a role in deciding this championship, but the This League, "Drive to Survive" loving side of me had an incredible time watching this race. It's what can make the sports so entertaining to watch but also so frustrating at the same time. Shout out to everyone who is watching their first season of F1, this is truly a historic championship, maybe the greatest battle of all time. I can't promise that every season will be like this, so soak up this final week as much as possible. It's a long winter until the "Drive to Survive" series about this season comes out in late February/early March. People watching this season of "Drive to Survive" are going to think this was all scripted with how dramatic it's been.

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Who do you think wins the championship on Sunday? Let's get into it.

That's a wrap for the penultimate race of the season and what a race it was. Next week is the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to end the season. To get everyone ready, here's one of the best season finales at Abu Dhabi from 2010 between Alonso, Vettel, Webber, and Hamilton: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OscqgBj1HCw

LIGHTS OUT AND AWAY WE GO for the Season Championship in Abu Dhabi this Sunday