[Race] The GROAT - Round 1 - 1989 Paul Ricard vs 2012 Interlagos vs 2021 Jeddah

[crmalcolm]

1989 Paul Ricard
At the first start, Senna led into the first corner from Prost, while behind them, Gugelmin locked his brakes and veered into Boutsen's Williams and Berger's Ferrari. The March launched into the air and flipped upside down, also knocking off Mansell's rear wing. The race was immediately red-flagged, a shaken Gugelmin taking the restart from the pit lane along with Mansell and Donnelly.

At the restart, Senna suffered a differential failure, leaving Prost to lead every lap of the race. Berger ran second in the early stages, ahead of Nannini, Boutsen and Ivan Capelli in the second March, before spinning on lap 12 and eventually retiring with a clutch failure. Boutsen developed gearbox problems while Nannini suffered a suspension failure on lap 41, promoting Capelli to second for three laps before his engine failed. This left Alesi second on his debut, ahead of Patrese and Mansell, before he pitted for tyres. Alliot and Gachot also ran in the top six before Alliot suffered an engine failure and Gachot pitted with a flat battery. On lap 61, Patrese spun under pressure from Mansell, allowing the Englishman through into second.

Prost took the chequered flag 44 seconds ahead of Mansell, with Patrese a further 22 seconds back. Alesi was fourth, seven seconds behind Patrese and the last driver on the lead lap, with Johansson scoring Onyx's first points in fifth and Olivier Grouillard in the Ligier scoring his only point for sixth. Pirro was ninth, Bernard 11th and Donnelly 12th, while Gugelmin recovered from his accident by setting the fastest race lap.

With the win, Prost extended his lead over Senna in the Drivers' Championship to 11 points.


2012 Interlagos
With only light rain just 10 minutes before the start, all teams opted to start on slick tyres. Vettel got away poorly, dropping to seventh position, while his rival Alonso moved up into fifth. Vettel and Bruno Senna collided at turn 4 in a racing incident, which saw Vettel spin while Senna ended up hitting the rear of Pérez. Vettel suffered damage to his left sidepod but was able to carry on, in 22nd position. However, the reigning world champion began to move up the order, as there was close racing for position at the front of the field as well. Massa helped his teammate overtake Mark Webber on lap two going into the Senna-S, giving the Spaniard the crucial third position he would need to win the title. But Alonso lost the position again to the fast running Force India of Nico Hülkenberg after running wide on lap four. Maldonado crashed out on lap two, when he lost control of his car on the kerb through the inside of turn 3, and crashed into the tyre barrier on the exit of the corner.

Rain began to fall during the next few laps and the first cars made pit stops for intermediate tyres, including the two title contenders, while Button and Hülkenberg stayed out. This proved to be the right decision since the rain decreased shortly afterwards and cars on intermediates were forced to pit for slick tyres once again. Hülkenberg continued his strong performance by overtaking Button for the lead at the end of lap 18 (their official time differential at the finish line at the end of that lap was 0.000).

With the two cars in front leading the field by almost a minute, debris on the track brought out the safety car on lap 23. At this point Alonso and Vettel were running in fourth and fifth place. At the restart on lap 29, Kamui Kobayashi took fifth position from Vettel. The damage on the Red Bull car slowed Vettel down considerably more in dry conditions, and Massa helped his teammate by overtaking the German shortly after. Meanwhile, at the front, Hamilton took second from his teammate and was able to pass Hülkenberg when the German half-spun. Hülkenberg pursued the McLaren but slid into him on lap 54, leaving Hamilton out of the race with damage to the left front suspension and himself with a drive-through penalty, handing Button the lead.

When the rain started again, Vettel was one of the first to pit for intermediates, but since his radio had failed the team was not ready for him, causing a long delay. Ferrari timed Massa's pit stop well, letting Alonso take second position from him. Vettel took sixth position from Michael Schumacher which proved sufficient to retain the title even with Alonso finishing second.

The race ended after Paul di Resta crashed on the start/finish straight shortly before the end, bringing out the safety car once again until the conclusion of the race. Caterham's Vitaly Petrov took 11th position which meant his team overtook Marussia in the Constructors' Championship. Former world champion Kimi Räikkönen had an eventful race as well, almost crashing into Vettel after the start and later trying to use an escape road only to find it to be a dead end. He later stated the way had been open 11 years prior, having made the same manoeuver at the 2001 race. He also had a close contest with the retiring Michael Schumacher, who finished seventh after recovering from an early puncture, but gave up sixth to Vettel in order to help him extend his small point advantage over Fernando Alonso in the championship.

The race received widespread acclaim, with The Guardian calling it a "rollercoaster". Three-time world champions Niki Lauda and Nelson Piquet stated that they had never seen a race like it. German magazine Der Spiegel deemed the race "spectacular" and "historic" due to the record-breaking 147 successful overtaking manoeuvres carried out during the race. Reuters said that "the Brazilian weather produced a thriller to stand the test of time against some of the sport's great races". Sebastian Vettel himself called it his "toughest race ever". This race has been retrospectively noted for its dramatic nature.

At age 25, Vettel became the youngest triple world champion of the sport, six years younger than Ayrton Senna had been in 1991. On drawing level with Senna, Vettel commented: "To win that third title here, where one of my greatest idols, Ayrton Senna, was from, it is very difficult to imagine I join him and other great names by winning three successive titles". Red Bull's team principal Christian Horner praised his driver, saying "Sebastian has driven better than ever this season and has fought his way back into this championship, he's never given up and you saw that in today's race".

The Daily Mirror lauded Red Bull designer Adrian Newey for making the decision to change the engine mapping on Vettel's car after reviewing photos of the damage sustained in the first lap accident. Newey was quoted saying: "So we photographed it going past, saw huge crease in exhaust, which usually means it will soon crack and the bodywork catch fire. [...] So we changed the engine mapping to keep the exhaust as cool as we could, even though it meant lost performance".

Championship runner-up Fernando Alonso expressed pride for his team, going so far as to call the 2012 season "the best season of my career". During the podium interview with Nelson Piquet, he asserted: "Obviously we lost the championship now, but I don't think, as you said, that we lost here in Brazil, we lost in some races where we were a little bit unlucky. But this is a sport, but when you do something with your heart, when you do something with 100 per cent, you have to be proud of your team, happy for them, and we will try next year." The press later pointed out Alonso's "grace after the race", contrasting him to Vettel who had criticized the competition's "dirty tricks" during his post-race press conference.

Speaking about his victory, Jenson Button congratulated his team, saying: "This is the perfect way to end the season. We have had ups and downs and to end on a high bodes well for 2013." His victory in this race would turn out to be his last in Formula One. It would also be McLaren's last victory until the 2021 Italian Grand Prix, won by Daniel Ricciardo.

Upon his second retirement from the sport, Michael Schumacher commented on the three years at Mercedes GP: "I have tried that mission to end successful. It didn't work this time but I'm quite happy to finish from here and go for a different life again."

Commenting on the outcome of the season, former team owner Eddie Jordan said he believed Alonso would have deserved the title more, considering the "less competitive machine". BBC columnist and former Formula One driver Jaime Alguersuari took a different viewpoint, saying the German deserved the title, having gone into the last race with "the most difficult position [...] – he had everything to lose".


2021 Jeddah
The race started at 20:30 local time on 5 December and lasted for 50 laps. The race was interrupted with incidents that resulted in one safety car period, two red flags, and four virtual safety car periods.

On lap 10, Mick Schumacher lost control of his Haas and smashed into the barriers. This caused the safety car to be deployed, and both of the Mercedes to pit, demoting them to second and third. The race was then red flagged, which meant that Max Verstappen could change tyres and would lead the race.

After the first standing restart, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were involved in an incident where Verstappen overtook Hamilton off the race track, shortly before a crash involving Sergio Perez, Charles Leclerc, Nikita Mazepin, and George Russell resulted in a second red flag period. This left the cars lined up with Verstappen in first, Esteban Ocon in second, and Hamilton in third. Initially, Masi offered to re-order the cars with Verstappen and Ocon switching places but was later amended to offer to move Hamilton to second and Verstappen to third, which left the proposed order as Ocon, Hamilton, and Verstappen. This was proposed in lieu of an investigation into Verstappen overtaking Hamilton at the first standing restart, and was only offered to Red Bull Racing and not put to the other two teams involved in the changing on the restart order, Alpine F1 Team and Mercedes AMG F1. Red Bull team principal Christian Horner compared the actions of race director Michael Masi to "like being at the local market", and added: "It felt like today the sport missed [Masi's predecessor] Charlie Whiting." Formula One chief Ross Brawn said that Masi dealt with the situation in a pragmatic way. Masi commented: "I wouldn't call it a deal, as from a race director's perspective I have no authority to instruct the teams to do anything in that situation. I can give them an offer, [I have] the ability to do that but the choice is theirs. The stewards are obviously empowered to give penalties, but I can give them my perspective. That's why I offered them the ability to give that position up."

[Adam43]

If anyone needs encouragement to vote for 1989 Paul Ricard here is a photo of Alain Prost with a lawn mower.
https://twitter.com/GoodwoodRRC/stat...EObWC7qJFKeb0w

[Gerard C]

Originally Posted by Adam43

here is a photo of Alain Prost with a lawn mower.

You "nail" down the argument… Honda works rider!

[S griffin]

1989 France is remembered for Gugelmin's big one, but should also be remembered for Alesi's sensational debut, a race in which Donnelly, Bernard and Pirro also made their debut.

2012 Brazil was a epic title fight, with action all the way through up and down the field. It didn't seem to matter so much the race finished under SC

2021 Saudi was certainly tense, but what happened between Max and Lewis shouldn't be remembered fondly

I'll go with Brazil