2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

The 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix (officially known as the Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021) was a Formula One motor race, held on 5 December 2021 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, in Saudi Arabia. The inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, it was the 21st round of the 2021 Formula One World Championship.

2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix
Race 21 of 22[1] in the 2021 Formula One World Championship
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The circuit layout
The circuit layout
Race details
Date 5 December 2021
Official name Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021
Location Jeddah Corniche Circuit, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
Course Street circuit
Course length 6.174 km (3.836 miles)
Distance 50 laps, 308.450 km (191.662 miles)
Weather Clear
Attendance 143,000[2]
Pole position
Driver
Mercedes
Time 1:27.511
Fastest lap
Driver United Kingdom Lewis Hamilton Mercedes
Time 1:30.734 on lap 47 (lap record)
Podium
First
Mercedes
Second
Red Bull Racing-Honda
Third
Mercedes
Lap leaders

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won the race ahead of Red Bull driver Max Verstappen, while Mercedes's Valtteri Bottas edged out Alpine's Esteban Ocon for third by 0.102 seconds. As of 2023, this is Hamilton’s most recent win; it was also his last pole position until the 2023 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Background
Further information: 2021 Formula One World Championship § Calendar changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic

The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was announced to be on the 2021 Formula One World Championship calendar in November 2020.[3] The race was originally to take place on 28 November, but it was rescheduled due to the postponement of the Australian Grand Prix owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.[lower-alpha 1][4]

On 28 November, one week before the race, Williams co-founder and former owner Sir Frank Williams died at the age of 79.[5] Teams sported tributes on their cars,[6] and a minute's silence took place approximately one hour before the start of the race.[7] On Sunday, former Williams driver Damon Hill did a lap of honour in the FW07, Williams's first championship winning car.[8] Alpine ran a special livery for the weekend to commemorate their 100th race with one of their sponsors Castrol.[9] On the eve of the race weekend, Williams CEO Jost Capito announced that he was tested positive for coronavirus, therefore missing the weekend with the team.[10]

Championship standings before the race

Max Verstappen was the Drivers' Championship leader with 8 points separating him and Lewis Hamilton, with 351.5 points and 343.5 points respectively. In the Constructors' Championship, Mercedes led Red Bull Racing by 5 points. Behind them, Ferrari in 3rd place led McLaren by 39.5 points.[11]

Entrants
See also: 2021 Formula One World Championship § Entries

The drivers and teams were the same as the season entry list with no additional stand-in drivers for the race or practice.[12]

This race was the last Formula One race start for Nikita Mazepin, who withdrew from the final race of the season due to a positive COVID-19 test, and was replaced ahead of the 2022 season, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[13]

Tyre choices

Sole tyre supplier Pirelli allocated the C2, C3, and C4 compounds of tyre to be used during this Grand Prix weekend.[14]

Practice

There were three practice sessions, each scheduled for one hour. The first two practice sessions took place on Friday 3 December at 16:30 and 20:00 local time (UTC+03:00) and the third practice session took place at 17:00 on 4 December.[15]

Qualifying

Qualifying took place on 4 December at 20:00 local time and lasted for one hour.[15] Qualifying began with Sergio Pérez taking top spot of the first segment of qualifying (Q1) with a time of 1.28.021. The second segment (Q2) ended with Lewis Hamilton taking the top spot with a time of 1.27.712. Hamilton set this time on 8 lap old medium tyres giving him a strong tyre disadvantage for the race (when drivers in the top 10 have to start on the tyre with which they set their fastest Q2 time) compared to his title rival Max Verstappen who had 4 lap old medium tyres.[16]

All cars who made it through Q2, qualified on the medium tyres apart from Lando Norris who ran the soft tyres. Carlos Sainz Jr. struggled with his Ferrari after spinning at turn 10 and brushing the wall with his rear wing, causing minor damage. On his final run in Q2, he had another loss of control, declaring the car was "undrivable"[17] and being forced to back out of the attempt.[16] Q3 began with Hamilton having a slide and aborting his opening attempt. Hamilton then set his pole lap of a 1.27.511. Max Verstappen was on his flying lap at the end of the session, setting the fastest time of the session in the first two sectors, whilst almost clipping the wall at the exit of turn 2. Coming into the final corner, he locked his front left tyre and after going wide and applying the throttle he lost control of the rear and hit the wall causing his suspension to break. This gave Hamilton pole, ahead of Valtteri Bottas and Verstappen.[16]

Qualifying classification
Pos. No. Driver Constructor Qualifying times Final
grid
Q1 Q2 Q3
1 44 United Kingdom Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1:28.466 1:27.712 1:27.511 1
2 77 Finland Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1:28.067 1:28.054 1:27.622 2
3 33 Netherlands Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing-Honda 1:28.285 1:27.953 1:27.653 3
4 16 Monaco Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:28.310 1:28.459 1:28.054 4
5 11 Mexico Sergio Pérez Red Bull Racing-Honda 1:28.021 1:27.946 1:28.123 5
6 10 France Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri-Honda 1:28.401 1:28.314 1:28.125 6
7 4 United Kingdom Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.338 1:28.344 1:28.180 7
8 22 Japan Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri-Honda 1:28.503 1:28.222 1:28.442 8
9 31 France Esteban Ocon Alpine-Renault 1:28.752 1:28.564 1:28.647 9
10 99 Italy Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari 1:28.889 1:28.616 1:28.754 10
11 3 Australia Daniel Ricciardo McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.216 1:28.668 N/A 11
12 7 Finland Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari 1:28.856 1:28.885 N/A 12
13 14 Spain Fernando Alonso Alpine-Renault 1:28.944 1:28.920 N/A 13
14 63 United Kingdom George Russell Williams-Mercedes 1:28.926 1:29.054 N/A 14
15 55 Spain Carlos Sainz Jr. Ferrari 1:28.236 1:53.652 N/A 15
16 6 Canada Nicholas Latifi Williams-Mercedes 1:29.177 N/A N/A 16
17 5 Germany Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin-Mercedes 1:29.198 N/A N/A 17
18 18 Canada Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Mercedes 1:29.368 N/A N/A 18
19 47 Germany Mick Schumacher Haas-Ferrari 1:29.464 N/A N/A 19
20 9 Russian Automobile Federation Nikita Mazepin[lower-alpha 2] Haas-Ferrari 1:30.473 N/A N/A 20
107% time: 1:34.182
Source:[19][20]

Race

The race started at 20:30 local time on 5 December and lasted for 50 laps.[15] The race was interrupted with incidents that resulted in one safety car period, two red flags, and four virtual safety car periods.[21]

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, Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton were involved in an incident where Verstappen overtook Hamilton off the race track, shortly before a crash involving Sergio Pérez, 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, race director Michael 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 (Ocon's team) and Mercedes (Hamilton's team).[22]

On lap 37, Verstappen made an illegal overtake on Hamilton. Verstappen was told to let Hamilton past by the stewards. He decided to slow down to a crawl before the upcoming DRS (drag reduction system) detection point, in order for Verstappen to be able to activate DRS and be back on the attack right away. Hamilton was not warned that Verstappen would let him pass and was surprised by Verstappen's sudden dramatic drop in speed, and failed to avoid running into the back of Verstappen, damaging Hamilton's front wing endplate and Verstappen's diffuser. Following the race, the stewards gave Verstappen a 10 second time penalty for the incident, which did not affect his second place, and gave two penalty points on Verstappen's super license.

On the last lap, Esteban Ocon was overtaken by Valtteri Bottas for third place.

Post-race

As both Hamilton and Verstappen had collided together for the third race in the season, Hamilton heavily criticised Verstappen in the post-race interviews, accusing his title rival for being "over the limit" in both his driving and title defense.[23] Verstappen meanwhile hit out at the sport following the incident and the post-race penalties applied to him, claiming F1 is "more about penalties than racing".[24]

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner compared the actions of race director Masi to "like being at the local market",[25] and added: "It felt like today the sport missed [Masi's predecessor] Charlie Whiting."[26] Formula One chief Ross Brawn said that Masi dealt with the situation in a pragmatic way.[27] 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."[28]

Russell, who retired as a result of the accident at the first restart and is also the director of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, called for changes to be made to the track for safety.[29] Norris, who was initially running in the points but dropped out during the red flag periods before recovering to 10th, meanwhile slammed the red flag tyre change rules, calling for the "unfair" rule to be changed and cited previous races where he ended up in similar situations.[30]

Race classification
Pos. No. Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points
1 44 United Kingdom Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 50 2:06:15.185 1 261
2 33 Netherlands Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing-Honda 50 +21.8252 3 18
3 77 Finland Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 50 +27.531 2 15
4 31 France Esteban Ocon Alpine-Renault 50 +27.633 9 12
5 3 Australia Daniel Ricciardo McLaren-Mercedes 50 +40.121 11 10
6 10 France Pierre Gasly AlphaTauri-Honda 50 +41.613 6 8
7 16 Monaco Charles Leclerc Ferrari 50 +44.475 4 6
8 55 Spain Carlos Sainz Jr. Ferrari 50 +46.606 15 4
9 99 Italy Antonio Giovinazzi Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari 50 +58.505 10 2
10 4 United Kingdom Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 50 +1:01.358 7 1
11 18 Canada Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Mercedes 50 +1:17.212 18
12 6 Canada Nicholas Latifi Williams-Mercedes 50 +1:23.249 16
13 14 Spain Fernando Alonso Alpine-Renault 49 +1 lap 13
14 22 Japan Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri-Honda 49 +1 lap3 8
15 7 Finland Kimi Räikkönen Alfa Romeo Racing-Ferrari 49 +1 lap 12
Ret 5 Germany Sebastian Vettel Aston Martin-Mercedes 44 Collision damage 17
Ret 11 Mexico Sergio Pérez Red Bull Racing-Honda 14 Collision 5
Ret 9 Russian Automobile Federation Nikita Mazepin[lower-alpha 2] Haas-Ferrari 14 Collision 20
Ret 63 United Kingdom George Russell Williams-Mercedes 14 Collision 14
Ret 47 Germany Mick Schumacher Haas-Ferrari 8 Accident 19
Fastest lap: United Kingdom Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) – 1:30.734 (lap 47)
Source:[20][31][32]

Notes

  • ^1 – Includes one point for fastest lap.
  • ^2 – Max Verstappen received a five-second time penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage. He also received a ten-second time penalty after the race for causing a collision with Lewis Hamilton. His final position was not affected by the penalties.[31]
  • ^3 – Yuki Tsunoda finished 13th, but received a five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Sebastian Vettel.[31]

Championship standings after the race
  • Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.
  • Competitors marked with an asterisk still had a mathematical chance of winning the Championship.
  • Max Verstappen was ahead of Lewis Hamilton courtesy of having won more races (nine compared to eight).

See also

Notes
  1. The Australian Grand Prix was eventually cancelled
  2. Nikita Mazepin is Russian, but he competed as a neutral competitor using the designation RAF (Russian Automobile Federation), as the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a ban on Russia competing at World Championships. The ban was implemented by the World Anti-Doping Agency in response to the state-sponsored doping program of Russian athletes.[18]

References
  1. Smith, Luke (28 August 2021). "Formula 1 reveals updated 2021 calendar, drops to 22 races". Autosport. Retrieved 6 October 2021.
  2. "Formula 1 announces TV, race attendance and digital audience figures for 2021". Formula1.com. 17 February 2022. Retrieved 17 February 2022.
  3. "F1 adds Saudi Arabian Grand Prix night race to 2021 calendar". Formula1. 5 November 2020. Retrieved 5 November 2020.
  4. "F1 Schedule 2021 – Bahrain to host season opener as Australia moves later in calendar and Imola returns". F1. 12 January 2021. Archived from the original on 12 January 2021. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  5. "Legendary F1 team boss Sir Frank Williams dies, aged 79 | Formula 1®". www.formula1.com. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  6. "F1 Teams Are Sporting Frank Williams Tributes In Jeddah". WTF1. 3 December 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  7. "F1 outlines Williams tribute plans including FW07 lap of honour". www.motorsport.com. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  8. "Damon Hill drives Jeddah Corniche Circuit in 1980 Williams". www.formula1.com. Retrieved 9 December 2021.
  9. "Alpine show off new-look livery for Saudi Arabian GP weekend". RacingNews365. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  10. "Williams CEO and Team Principal Jost Capito tests positive for Covid-19 ahead of Saudi Arabian Grand Prix | Formula 1®". www.formula1.com. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  11. "Qatar 2021 – Championship". StatsF1.com.
  12. "2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix – Entry List" (PDF). Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. 2 December 2021. Retrieved 2 December 2021.
  13. Fair, Asher (5 March 2022). "Formula 1: Nikita Mazepin missed his final race". beyondtheflag.com. Minute Media. Retrieved 30 March 2022.
  14. "Formula 1 2021 Season - Pirelli Unveils Tire Choices For All 23 GPs". F1Lead. 20 February 2021. Archived from the original on 21 February 2021. Retrieved 12 September 2021.
  15. "Saudi Arabia timetable". Formula 1. Archived from the original on 2 November 2021. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  16. Bradley, Charles (4 December 2021). "F1 Grand Prix qualifying results: Hamilton takes Saudi pole". Motorsport.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  17. Narvaez, Matthew (5 December 2021). "Jeddah Preview: The Saudi Arabia GP causes most controversial title mistake at the most key time". WhoRaced.com. Motorsport Network. Retrieved 16 January 2022.
  18. Luke Smith (5 February 2021). "Mazepin set to race under neutral flag after CAS ruling extends to F1". motorsport.com. Archived from the original on 5 February 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2021.
  19. "Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021 – Qualifying". Formula1.com. 4 December 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  20. "Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021 – Starting Grid". Formula 1.com. 4 December 2021. Archived from the original on 25 October 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2021.
  21. "Hamilton wins chaotic Saudi Arabian F1 GP to draw level with Verstappen". Guardian. 5 December 2021. Retrieved 10 December 2021.
  22. "F1 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix as it happened – Title race to go to wire after more Hamilton-Verstappen drama". Eurosport.com. Discovery. 5 December 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  23. "Hamilton: Verstappen was "over the limit" with Saudi GP moves". www.motorsport.com. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  24. "Verstappen: 'F1 more about penalties than racing' after Saudi GP". www.motorsport.com. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  25. Kershaw, Tom (7 December 2021). "'Like being at the local market': Christian Horner lifts lid on negotiations with FIA". The Independent. Independent Digital News & Media. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  26. Braidwood, James (7 December 2021). "Saudi Arabian Grand Prix shows F1 'misses Charlie Whiting', Christian Horner claims". The Independent. Independent Digital News & Media. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 28 December 2021.
  27. Braidwood, Jamie (7 December 2021). "'Like being at the local market': Christian Horner lifts lid on negotiations with FIA". The Independent. Independent Digital News & Media. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  28. Braidwood, Jamie (7 December 2021). "FIA race director explains decisions behind chaotic Saudi Arabian Grand Prix". The Independent. Independent Digital News & Media. Archived from the original on 7 December 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
  29. "Russell: F1 "has a lot to learn" from unnecessary Jeddah danger". www.motorsport.com. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  30. "Norris: "Stupid" red flag F1 tyre change rules must be changed". www.motorsport.com. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
  31. "Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021 – Race Result". Formula1.com. 5 December 2021. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
  32. "Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021 – Fastest Laps". Formula1.com. 5 December 2021. Retrieved 5 December 2021.
  33. "Saudi Arabia 2021 - Championship". www.statsf1.com.
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