[Official] Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2021: Grand Prix Weekend Thread - Final Round

[Born Racer]

369.5 - 369.5 is the magic number that it has all boiled down to. After 21 Grands Prix - and most of them have been grand and enthralling, many of them momentous, delivering one dramatic surprise after another, of the kind that prompts you to reflect that in years to come you will be viewing the pictures of which in motorsport books and historic magazine pieces – we have a drivers' title decider in Abu Dhabi between current seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton and 19-time Grand Prix winner Max Verstappen in which they sit equal on that number.

All the scrapping, the contention, the seeking of an edge over the other, taking the other over the edge of the line, literally in the case of track limits – and best of all for us spectators, the mutual augmentation of their performances that they have delivered in these 21 races, pushing each other to new levels of patience testing, precision, consistent and relentless performance, otherworldly fast laps and stupefying racecraft (albeit at times highly debatable)– has taken us to 369.5. Winner takes all. He who finishes ahead of the other will be champion, with the caveat that Max will win if neither score.

Lest we forget, in this epic struggle, we have beheld Hamilton slipping off at Tosa and surviving at Imola, a clash with Verstappen there, Max's Azerbaijan tyre failure, crashing out of the lead, the pile-up triggered by Bottas in Hungary, wiping out the Red Bull driver, the Belgian non-Grand Prix, the Silverstone crash at Copse, the Monza clash at the Rettifilo, in which Verstappen was on top of Hamilton's car, the Brazilian Grand Prix battle and latterly, the high jinks and confusion in Saudi Arabia, notwithstanding the superb driving and overtaking. Somehow, both managed to exert themselves and end up at the sharp end of the field most of the time, together on track a lot of it.

The drivers' championship is not the only point of interest. Red Bull still battle Mercedes for the constructors' championship. The former are seeking their first since 2013 and 5th overall (to put them 2 behind Mercedes), while the latter are pursuing an 8th, which would draw them level with McLaren to equal 3rd in the all-time list, and extend their run as the most successful team in terms of consecutive constructors' championships, currently one clear of Ferrari at 7. Nonetheless, it's looking a tall order for the Milton Keynes-based team, as they sit uncomfortably, a distant 28 points adrift of the Brackley outfit.

Regrettably, many other fights have been settled, where it had been looking close. Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez are firmly ensconced in 3rd and 4th respectively in the drivers', while in the constructors', Ferrari have one hand on 3rd place, 38.5 points ahead of McLaren, while Alpine now hold a 29-point margin over AlphaTauri.


The history

In the first year, 2009, Brawn driver Jenson Button arrived in Abu Dhabi for the seventeenth and final race fresh off the back of his world championship, having sealed it last time out in Brazil. This was the final race we saw refuelling.

After leading the early laps, Lewis Hamilton was jumped at the stops by Sebastian Vettel, in his first year with Red Bull. Hamilton went out with brake trouble, while the only other retirement was Jaime Alguersuari who retired after stopping in the Red Bull pit by mistake, instead of that of the junior team, Toro Rosso. Red Bull sent him out (it was the lap when Vettel was due in) and he went out of the race with a gearbox problem. Kamui Kobayashi finished sixth for Toyota, impressing the team and scoring points in only his second race; he looked set to stay at the team, but they were to withdraw at the end of the year (it was also BMW’s final race). Vettel held on for his fifth Grand Prix win and his fourth of the season. Team-mate Mark Webber fought off a hard challenge by the new World Champion on the final lap to hang on to the runner-up spot.

2010 was a championship decider with something few people apparently saw coming, this lack of foresight contributing to the result itself. Four drivers went into the race with a chance of winning the title, Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso leading the championship battle on 246 points, with Mark Webber giving chase on 238, and more remote chances for Sebastian Vettel on 231 points and Lewis Hamilton on 222. It was the first year in which 25 points was awarded for a victory and the first time four drivers had entered the final Grand Prix with a chance of the world title.

On the opening lap, Michael Schumacher tried to pass Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg and spun, leading to a scary moment when Vitantonio Liuzzi put his car atop the Mercedes. Vettel led away from pole and ended up leading most of the race, apart from a period during the pit stops. Mark Webber struggled for grip on the super-soft tyres and pitted early. Ferrari followed suit for Alonso to cover the Red Bull driver, a catastrophic strategic decision as it turned out, which ultimately may have partly led to Aldo Costa’s demotion and perhaps even to his eventual departure from the team. Both drivers struggled to overtake and were well down the order, with Alonso’s race-long frustration behind Renault’s Vitaly Petrov a particularly obvious moment to pick as defining the outcome of the season.

Meanwhile, Vettel, blissfully unaware of being in the pound seats for the championship, romped home to victory. With some slight shades of James Hunt in 1976, he had no idea he was world champion on crossing the line and only learned of his success when told by his engineer.

The following year, Vettel again got into the first corner first, but a puncture led to his retirement and in a reversal of their 2009 fortunes, it was Lewis Hamilton who took the spoils. Alonso in the Ferrari and Button in the McLaren completed the podium.

2012 saw that season’s returnee and this season's retiree Kimi Räikkönen return to the top step of the podium for the first time since 2009 in his new Lotus team. He controlled the race well since taking over the lead following Lewis Hamilton’s retirement and told the team and the world just how in control he was with his infamous words “Just leave me alone – I know what I’m doing” and when asked by the team to keep the heat in all four tyres under the safety car, replying “Yes, yes, yes, yes – I’m doing it all the time. You don’t have to remind me every ten seconds”. Kimi was quite big on words that day as both he and Vettel were warned by the stewards about swear words on the podium that day in the new-style more media-friendly podium ceremony. Kimi still had a more typical moment of nonchalance and understatement that day, though, with his placid response to being asked about his emotions regarding how it felt to be a winner again of "not much really".

In 2013, there was a partial solar eclipse that could be seen during the race, but Sebastian Vettel totally eclipsed the opposition, as he overtook Mark Webber into Turn 1 and led every lap of the race, winning by 30.8 seconds from his Red Bull team-mate.

2014 saw the first and probably last time that we will see double championship points offered in the last race. We also saw the super-soft and soft tyres being introduced, instead of the soft and the medium of the previous three seasons. Lewis Hamilton ended up taking his second world title and the win, with Felipe Massa just 2.5 seconds behind at the chequered flag. Valtteri Bottas’s third meant that Williams got their first double podium since Nick Heidfeld and Mark Webber finished 2nd and 3rd at Monaco in 2005.

The next year, Nico Rosberg completed an end-of-season hat-trick to win ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton, while Kimi Räikkönen completed the podium. This run of three wins for Nico extended into a run of seven, as he also took the first four victories of 2016, setting himself up for his world championship.

In the end of that season, Nico took his only F1 world title, finishing second after what he described as a race which was "so intense, so, so, so horribly intense" and a "horrible feeling" defending. Lewis Hamilton won the race and tried to back Rosberg up into the pack, but Rosberg stayed resolute and held second over Daniel Ricciardo.

In 2017, Valtteri Bottas won from world champ team-mate Hamilton.

A year after, Lewis Hamilton won from Vettel and Max Verstappen. Nico Hülkenberg was tipped into a roll on the opening lap, while in 2019, Hamilton took victory from Verstappen and Charles Leclerc.

Last year, it was Max Verstappen who stopped the Mercedes juggernaut, which had stretched back to 2014, never passed from pole. Bottas was runner-up and Hamilton, returning from Covid, 3rd. Alexander Albon passed Lando Norris for 4th and his final race before returning to Williams next season.


The track

A purpose-built race circuit designed in conjunction with the surrounding buildings, including the symbolic Yas Vicero Abu Dhabi Hotel, whose diamond-shaped colour-changing LED panes show off the opulence of the emirates and which is built over the track, the Yas Marina circuit is characterised by its billiard table-like smooth surface and contemporary corner design with a few curious and tricky curves.

It has undergone some key changes this year which have been designed to improve overtaking and increase speed.

Drivers can carry quite a lot of speed into the wide Turn 1, but it has to be tempered because it is also quite an angle on the exit. They then vault up towards the apex of the left-hand Turn 2 on the brow of a slight hill before holding on flat through the long right-hand Turn 3. Turn 4 is really just a bit of a curve on the downhill straight. Instead of the chicane here, we now have a wider North Hairpin (Turn 5).

They are now into Sector 2. There is a chicane here (Turns 6 and 7), which is left, a tiny bit right and then immediately left again. At the end of the next straight, instead of the quick chicane, we now have a banked turn (Turn 9) which takes the drivers into Sector 3. Turns 10 and 11 are both right-handers and the braking for Turn 12 (formerly Turn 17) is tricky, as drivers are turning slightly and the corner soon appears. This right-hander is less tight than in previous years and the radius of the next three turns has also been opened. The drivers go left under the hotel at 13, before going left again at 14. The final two corners (15 and 16) are in a similar vein to 10 and 11 but with the final corner being much more angled. Drivers carry a lot of speed through the penultimate turn but have to be careful to slow down enough for the final corner, which is a tricky angle to aim at following that braking zone.

The change of ambient temperature here as the race goes on can have its effect on performance. We can anticipate some bigger vertical loads, especially on the fronts. It can also be a little difficult to to avoid wheelspin out of some of the slow corners. The tyres heat up quite a lot in the first sector before then cooling down a bit on the long straight.





Other information

Circuit length: 5.281km
Number of laps: 58
Race distance: 306.183km
Dry weather tyre compounds: C3, C4 & C5
Race Lap Record: n/a
First Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: 2009
First Abu Dhabi Grand Prix on this track: 2009
First Grand Prix on this configuration: 2021

Join the fun in the title deciders of the Predictions Contest and Fantasy F1:

https://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156738

https://tentenths.com/forum/showthread.php?t=156053

In the Predictions Contest, who will win the Ten-Tenths champion's t-shirt?


Trivia

This is the first drivers' championship title decider at the final round since 2016.

This is the first time the top drivers have entered the final round tying on points for the championship lead since Clay Regazzoni and Emerson Fittipaldi in 1974, the only other time it has occurred.

Of course, if Lewis Hamilton wins the championship this weekend, he will become the first person to achieve eight titles.

It is probably the final F1 race for both Alfa Romeo drivers, Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi. This is Kimi's 353rd Grand Prix weekend (the most experienced driver F1 ever) and will be his 349th start.