Formula 1 Winners & Loser: Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Photo by Joe Portlock from Getty Images

This was the perfect season finale for the 2021 Formula 1 season.

Allow me to explain.

Winners:

2. Sergio Perez

Checo did exactly what you need to do as a teammate.

Lewis was faster than Max, and Red Bull desperately needed him to be held up.

Checo did his job, and he did it FLAWLESSLY.

It was clean, and it slowed Lewis up six seconds from the original gap to Verstappen.

It was early in the race, and so much other stuff happened that we will discuss so it could be forgotten, but it shouldn’t.

Checo did a great job.

1B. Lewis Hamilton

He got schooled in qualifying, and he was starting the race at a track where track position is key behind his championship contender on softer tires.

Didn’t matter. Lewis got a flawless start, avoided contact with Max early on, and built the gap to Max back up after being slowed down by Checo.

He had a fantastic race, and was easily going to win not only the race, but his 8th Formula 1 World Championship.

Obviously, it didn’t end that way.

But it’s impossible to discredit the job he did today.

And a side note of credit for Lewis for how he handled the loss. He has admitted he is a very bad loser, and there was no loss harder to take than this one.

He handled it with excellent class.

1A. Max Verstappen

There will be people who say that Max Verstappen didn’t deserve to win this race.

Don’t listen to them.

Stuff like a late safety car affects races all the time. This was no different.

It was just more important.

Regardless, the most impressive thing from Max is that he did not need to win this race. If Max and Lewis both didn’t finish, Max would win the World Championship based on points.

People thought he might do it all week, and he had a great opportunity being directly behind Lewis with only one racing lap left.

But Max doesn’t want to win like that. He wants to win the whole damn race.

And he did, with an awesome move into the first hairpin, and then great defensive driving from Lewis who fought back with everything he had.

Max Verstappen is a Formula 1 World Champion, and the championship was decided in incredible fashion.

It was the fitting ending to this season.

Losers

1. Michael Masi

Michael Masi has to go.

He completely lost control on this sport, and this isn’t even going to discuss previous races before this.

Let’s start with the Antonio Giovinazzi failure.

Giovinazzi had a hydraulic failure and needed to retire from the race, and pulled off the track right by one of the highest speed turns on the track.

Cars were still flying around that corner for about 30 seconds before they decided to put out the virtual safety car.

There is no excuse for that.

And then, with the final accident, Masi had two options.

He could either A). Let the lapped cars overtake the safety car, which he isn’t obliged to do, and have the race and championship end under the safety car or B). Don’t let the lapped cars overtake and get one more lap of racing in.

He decided to not let the lapped cars overtake, because he wanted another lap of racing, and that’s fair enough!

The lapped cars would have moved out of the way regardless, and Max, on softer and much fresher tires than Lewis, likely would have caught Lewis by turn 9 for an exhilarating finish, so I thought he made the right call.

And then he out of the blue decided that lapped cars could overtake the safety car and we’d still get one more lap of racing.

But also, the only lapped cars allowed to overtake the safety car are the cars in between Lewis and Max.

This may surprise you, but that’s not allowed.

Michael Masi just ignored the F1 rule book in favor of drama.

And I respect him for it, because that ending will be remembered forever and I’m still shaking thinking about it. It was incredible and everything I love about this sport.

Despite all of that, Masi is terrible at his job and needs to be replaced before next season.