2021 F1 Grand Prix of Qatar — Results & aftermath

Hamilton romps to win inaugural Qatar GP but Bottas DNFs; Verstappen P2, Perez P4 as Championships tighten yet again; savvy Alonso earns first podium since 2014

Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton continued his late season push for a record shattering eighth Formula 1 Championship by taking a dominant win at the inaugural Qatar Grand Prix on Sunday night. Starting from the pole, Hamilton’s raw pace made easy work of the illuminated Losail International Circuit and left his competition in the dust, earning his second win on the trot with only two contests remaining to pull closer to his main rival and current points leader, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen. But despite Hamilton’s supremacy in Qatar it was not all good news for him and Mercedes on the day. With Max Verstappen being demoted down to P7 on the grid instead of alongside Hamilton where he qualified just before the race after the stewards somewhat dubiously decided that the Dutchman failed to slow properly under double yellow flags at the end of Saturday Qualifying, Hamilton could be forgiven for hoping Verstappen might get mired in the pack of reasonably fast cars in front of him and somehow leave a large haul of points on the table. It didn’t happen and instead Verstappen once again delivered a virtuoso performance in damage limitation, steaming through the field and into P2 by Lap 5 of the race, a position he would easily retain at the end of this 57-lap contest. Combined with his setting the fastest lap of the GP for the bonus point, Verstappen was able to keep Hamilton behind him by 8 points going into that final brace of races in the 2021 campaign. But Hamilton did nick 6 points back with his win and his newer-engined Mercedes is also genuinely streaking away from everyone on track. So Verstappen is going to need to somehow win one of the last contests or hope that Hamilton has some sort of unexpected issue that pushes him down the order because if Hamilton wins the last two races and Verstappen finishes second in both, the Englishman will steal back the title from him in heartbreaking fashion. As the saying goes, there is truly all to play for.

The day turned mixed for Mercedes because their second driver, Valtteri Bottas, was also demoted from his starting spot on the grid, from P3 down to P6 for the same infraction, although it was an odd decision that saw the Finn only receive a three-place penalty while Verstappen was handed the more draconian 5-place drop. In any event, Bottas had a poor getaway at the start that saw him shuffled back to P11 and while he steadily worked his way back into the points the team decided to gamble on running a very long first stint on the Medium Pirelli tires and perhaps attempt a one-stop race, saving the round about 24-seconds of a second pit stop in an effort to elevate Valtteri Bottas to the podium. The strategy ended up backfiring somewhat spectacularly on team Silver Arrows when Bottas suffered a puncture to his left front tire on Lap 34 that forced him to crawl back to the pits for emergency service during which he dropped from P3 down to P14. Making matters worse, it seemed like the team may have had a free pit stop a few laps earlier when the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez was being held up while battling the Alpine of Fernando Alonso for fourth place. But once Perez got by Alonso he started gaining on Bottas at rate of knots that made that idea moot. So, perhaps the team got a little greedy there and eventually they even had to retire Bottas’ car likely due to the damage it received rattling around the circuit after that puncture.

Meanwhile, Perez, who had a poor qualifying and started from P11, made it home safely to take P4 and allow team Red Bull to score double points on a day when only Hamilton scored for Mercedes and thereby close the gap in the Constructors’ to a razor thin 5 points. Red Bull may also actually have been a bit too clever for their own good with their race strategy for Perez, which saw them repeatedly pit the Mexican at points when he was  fated to come back out behind a lot of fairly fast cars. But Checo made a passel of passes for that valuable P4, which overall resulted in a decent result for Red Bull on a night when Mercedes power clearly reigned supreme. The team did end up ceding that P3 podium, perhaps out of an abundance of caution to protect Perez’s tires as they looked around and saw others start to fail a la Bottas, to Alonso’s Alpine, who scored his first podium since 2014 in Hungary and first of his comeback. Alonso really earned it, as well, beautifully nursing his second set of tires, the Hard compound, to the end after stopping way back on Lap 23 and then sweating out several other potential one-stop aspirants’ punctures as the high curbs here ground down their rubber. It made for a fine feel good side story on a day where the dominant theme was once again the titanic season-long title tilt between Hamilton and Verstappen for F1 supremacy.

Top 10 finishers of the Qatar GP:

POS NO DRIVER CAR LAPS TIME/RETIRED PTS
1 44 Lewis Hamilton MERCEDES 57 1:24:28.471 25
2 33 Max Verstappen RED BULL RACING HONDA 57 +25.743s 19
3 14 Fernando Alonso ALPINE RENAULT 57 +59.457s 15
4 11 Sergio Perez RED BULL RACING HONDA 57 +62.306s 12
5 31 Esteban Ocon ALPINE RENAULT 57 +80.570s 10
6 18 Lance Stroll ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 57 +81.274s 8
7 55 Carlos Sainz FERRARI 57 +81.911s 6
8 16 Charles Leclerc FERRARI 57 +83.126s 4
9 4 Lando Norris MCLAREN MERCEDES 56 +1 lap 2
10 5 Sebastian Vettel ASTON MARTIN MERCEDES 56 +1 lap 1

Complete race results available via Fomula1.com.

The next race is in a fortnight’s time and will mark another debut event to the F1 calendar — the first ever Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the elongated street course, the Jeddah Corniche Circuit. The pressure on Verstappen and Hamilton will be immense but they’re two of the very best when the money’s on the table. One thing’s for sure — whichever of these two fantastic drivers does prevail in 2021 they’ll have really earned it. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!