The Race of The Generation | Lewis Hamilton Vs Max Verstappen
We all have heard if you are passionate about something, never give up and do everything you can to achieve your goals & dreams.
However, sometimes it’s not all about giving your all to achieve your dreams because sometimes your luck plays a crucial role in getting you closer or further away from achieving your goals & fulfilling your dreams.
So, sometimes no matter how hard you try, if your luck is not with you, you can't win. The same thing happened with Lewis Hamilton who was fighting hard for his 8th Championship Title in Abu Dhabi, 2021 but in the end, luck intervened & turned the tables completely.
So, get excited because we are going in-depth into that whole scenario to understand what chain of events led to this historic moment that put the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 team and Lewis Hamilton in a tough spot!!👍😉
Raising The Bar
Every season FIA changes rules and teams try to adapt and get better throughout the season to win Grand Prix and championships.
However, Mercedes has always been the center of attention when it comes to winning championships or innovations, and every year their engineers introduce some intuitive technologies that give them an edge over the rest of the grid because of which they won 8-Constructors titles in a row but there has to come a point where all of this, ends.
So, Toto Wolff & team was well aware of this and prepared themselves for such desperate times, and in an interview Toto said;
We have been winning 8-years in a row since I joined the team and we pushed the needle so far that we are running around the target behind our own back.
While pre-season testing the drivers (Lewis Hamilton & Valtteri Bottas) found their cars terrible to drive because the team made some decisions during the development of the car that looked promising in terms of performance & reliability but went against their anticipations in pre-season testing and nothing could be done on this point but to keep working hard towards solutions that would bring more performance to the car throughout the season.
On this matter, Andrew Shovelin (The Trackside Engineer) gives an indication that;
Currenlty, we are not matching the standards that we used to set and the other teams were hard to beat until they started to raise the bar
Amidst these analyses, Max Verstappen seized the pole in the qualifying round by hitting the ground running with the quickest lap with a difference of 0.3 seconds with Lewis Hamilton.
However, despite everything going against Mercedes at the beginning of the season Lewis gave everything he had, to keep Max behind and won the Bahrain GP
Clash of The Titans
So, Mercedes's last win in the Bahrain GP gave them hope that they could build on this progress and win the upcoming races but all hopes vanished when they reached the Monaco GP where Lewis & Max both finished in the same positions in which they started the race “6th position & 1st”, respectively.
Winning the race in Monaco is every driver's dream and as Christan Horner said;
To prove you are a worthy driver you have to win Monaco GP
Therefore, winning the Monaco GP boosted the morale of Redbulls and with this boost & adrenaline they carried this momentum and won 5 races consecutively, and Max was able to get a healthy lead of 32 points from Lewis, which created the hype that made everybody think that this season Redbulls got it right and they are going to win but then they came to the British GP, and started on the front row of the grid with Max on pole & Lewis on 2nd position.
Here the drama begins.…😎
So, in the opening laps of the race they both try to surpass each other but Max gets ahead in turn 1, and they fight hard head-to-head till turn 5, where Lewis is able to achieve more speed and with the DRS open he almost gets ahead of Max but in Turn 6, again Max gets ahead.
BONO said in Lewis’s ears;
Keep Pushing, Keep Pushing
Lewis said;
Leave it to me, Bono
and again both of them get close to each other near turn 9 — There is very little space between them — Lewis is looking for a gap, Max is not leaving any gap — Lewis takes the inside line, and Max chooses the outside line — Max is going to close the door, Lewis is already halfway there to overtake, they going to collide, they going to collide and bam they collided with each at turn 9 with Max spinning & hitting the barriers!!!💣🏎. and Lewis running in a brief shock of what just happened instantaneously.
The Fight Is Far From Over
After they (Lewis & Max) crashed into each other, the race restarted and a 10-second penalty was given to Lewis.
So, despite that penalty, Lewis won the race and this win brought joy to Mercedes after losing & lacking performance continuously for 5-races in a row for the first time in 8-years, and a spark of hope ignited in the team that the fight for the championship was far from over.
But after Mercedes won a few races and achieved a good lead from Redbulls then once again, in Monza GP they crossed each other path in the second half of the race, as Lewis was getting out of the pit lane and joining the track with Max who came down to his neck and on turn 1 both crashed and went out of the race because of “space issue” like in British GP.
After the Monza GP both (Mercedes & Redbull) won races here & there which closed the gap between the points in both Championships (Drivers and Constructors) but it got tricker in the new circuits like Qatar & Saudi Arabia.
However, it all comes down to the last two races that would decide the championship, and in Saudi Arabia with tons of drama & thriller Lewis & Valtteri were finally able to get their team ahead of Redbulls in Constructors and Lewis leveled in points with Max in Drivers Championship title.
And now finally we are here, at the most important moment that changed F1 history, indefinitely.
So, if you are still here with me then without any further ado, let’s get into that historic moment to see how fate played its role in turning the tables around and how the championship ended in a never-ending controversy!!🤔
The Race of The Generation
Strategies are crucial but it always comes down to two drivers on the track to win the race.
In the qualification round of the Abu Dhabi GP, Mercedes was not quick enough they didn't have the pace as compared to Redbulls because of that Max was able to secure pole position for the race and Lewis had to settle for 2nd place on the grid.
This pole position of Max created tension around the F1 paddock as everybody’s eyes were on Redbulls & Mercedes and everyone was thinking about Who would win the championship and who would take it all, as it all boils down to this last race of the 2021 season.
Before the race, when asked to Toto Wolff who would win the race, he said;
May The Best Man Prevail
So, in the race, Lewis was able to get ahead of Max and Mercedes made the right strategies. They were closing down the gap between them and the World Championship but Redbulls tried their best to keep Mercedes at bay by using their second driver Sergio Perez, who held him for such long that Max caught up to them and overtook his teammate to fight with Lewis for the win.
However, by the time Max reached to his teammate, Lewis lapped some cars and now Max had to overtake those lapped cars to fight Lewis, seeing this Christian Horner said;
We need a miracle to win this race
You know sometimes God hears our prayers and rarely it happens that whatever you wished for is granted by God at that very moment.
The same thing happened to Redbulls, Fate/luck intervened and when Christian Horner said those words, suddenly a crash between Nicholas Latifi & Mick Schumacher happened in the last few laps of the race that turned the tables and completely changed the whole race.
This crash ignited a spark of hope in the Redbull paddock because the strategy Redbulls used to keep Lewis at bay somewhat worked but now it was on fate to decide to make them champion or a runner-up.
So, fate took a turn and FIA only allowed those lapped cars to un-lap themselves that are between Lewis Hamilton & Max Verstappen, not the rest of the cars.
Due to this Max got behind Leiws with new fresh soft tyers with more grip leaving Leiws in a very difficult spot with old used hard tyers with less grip.
So in the final lap when the safety car ended Lewis tried his best to keep Max at bay but despite trying his best, he couldn't able to keep him behind, Max crossed the line and became the World Champion of Formula 1, 2021 season.
However, after losing the race Lewis Hamilton was sitting in thinking about how the world championship title which was solely his, was seized from him with manipulation by the FIA but he picked himself up by keeping one thing in mind to never give up, and that
I will become a 8-Time World Champion in future
Now he is in pursuit of achieving his dream of becoming 8th-time Formula 1 World Champion, however, for the second season running he wasn't able to win any Grand Prix in pole position.
But in the spirit that he & his team (Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1) have done this before and they could do it again, he is working tirelessly with the team to get on the podiums again, but this process will take time because the competition is getting Cut-Throat due to the regulation changes by FIA every season.
So, this was the race of the generation that made a mark in Formula 1 history. Hope you enjoyed the journey till the end of this story!!👍
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While you are at it check out the following stories, if you are completely new to the Formula 1 world or if you are curious to more about the World of Formula 1;
👉 Formula 1 | A Guide For Beginner’s | Rules, Cars, Teams, Drivers & Point System
👉 FORMULA 1 WORLD | The Most Prestigious Motorsport In The World
👉 Formula 1 | Story of Flags You Should Know
👉 Formula 1 | Story & History of Tyers
Take care of yourself and enjoy the rest of my stories and until you finish reading them, I’ll meet you with a new story!!👋
