F1: Revisiting Lewis Hamilton's Qatar GP 2021 victory

After 19 gruelling races and very little to choose between our two title protagonists, the Formula One carnival reached the deserts of Losail for the inaugural edition of the Formula One Qatar GP.  

Following the controversy at the Brazilian GP and a resurgent Lewis Hamilton winning the main race in dominating fashion, Max Verstappen and Red Bull were feeling the heat as the teams continued to fight off the track with regard to the legality of the Mercedes rear wing. 

However, Lewis Hamilton's victory at the 2021 Qatar GP was a somewhat unremarkable one in the pantheon of Hamilton’s 103 victories, but inescapably significant for the championship.

The seven-time world champion had the upper hand on his title rival right from Free Practice 1, which only grew as the weekend wore on. By the time qualifying wrapped up, Hamilton had a sizeable fourth-tenth lead on second-placed Max Verstappen over one lap pace. 

Moreover, the race turned in Hamilton's favour even before the five red lights went out after Verstappen was handed a 5-place grid penalty for not slowing under double waved yellows during Saturday's qualifying session. 

While Hamilton bolted off the line, Max took just five laps to climb up to second but was already four seconds adrift of the pacesetter. 

They duly exchanged fastest laps, lap after lap, something that had become familiar that season, but Hamilton held the gap at five seconds as they left the field behind.

By lap 15, however, Hamilton began to show the pace he had demonstrated in qualifying, pulling out over seven seconds on Verstappen while both maintained a ferocious pace, more than 30 seconds up the road from Fernando Alonso in third.

As the field spread out and the cars settled, the leaders matched each other across the two pit stops but Hamilton kept a comfortable 10 second lead as they began their final runs. Verstappen, recognising he could not challenge, decided to have a bit of fun. “Let’s have a bit of fun, we’re going to be second anyway”, he said and the team duly gave him the nod to hammer his tyres, but still he could make no impression as Hamilton maintained a seven-second lead.

Verstappen later took an extra stop to secure the fastest lap for that crucial one extra point but, with a near 30-second lead in the end, the seven-time world champion sealed a comfortable victory. 

Verstappen’s Red Bull simply could not match the pace of the Mercedes. Mercedes and Hamilton delivered a flawless race at Losail, something they've been known to become very good at since the beginning of the hybrid era. 

Verstappen acknowledged there was nothing he could do. “We just didn’t have the pace to match them,” he said. 

With this victory, Hamilton closed down the gap to just eight points, securing back-to-back victories in Brazil and Qatar. He would eventually go on to win the Saudi Arabian GP and was on course to win his eighth world title in Abu Dhabi, before a late controversial call by the stewards in the dying moments of the race led to Verstappen winning his first world championship.