Dutchman was handed a title lifeline on the final lap and then Mercedes’ legal challenges came to nothingShortly after the most chaotic and enthralling finish to a Formula One title in the sport’s history, Max Verstappen stood on top of his Red Bull car, fists pumping and shaking as if a lightning bolt was surging through him, before making a flying dismount, Frankie Dettori style. Who could blame him? Somehow, against the odds, he had muscled past Lewis Hamilton during a dramatic final lap shootout in the last race of 2021. A first world title was secured. Yet this thriller of an F1 season still had one final vicious twist to come.While the Dutch driver was celebrating, Hamilton’s Mercedes’ team...
The controversial conclusion to the championship in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix came at the end of a season of squabblingAn enthralling duel between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen at the season-opener hints at the controversy and drama that lies ahead. Verstappen starts on pole at the Bahrain International Circuit and a gripping strategic fight ensues in which Hamilton and Mercedes take the lead. Later running fresher tyres, Red Bull’s man hits back to pass Hamilton on lap 53, but leaves the track in doing so, and is immediately obliged to give the place back. Hamilton nurses his older tyres home, clinging on to win what he calls a “great battle”. Continue reading...
Calmer Hamilton has had to respond to Dutchman’s aggressive style, with winner taking all in the world championshipNo one goes to a motor race hoping to see a crash, or so they used to say. It may be less true this weekend, when the promise of mayhem between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen in the final round of the 2021 Formula One world championship promises to attract a vast worldwide television audience.As they prepare for Sunday’s showdown, Verstappen hoping to become champion for the first time and Hamilton in line to surpass Michael Schumacher with a record eighth title, not just individual career landmarks rest on the outcome. It feels as though much more – perhaps nothing less than the...
The seven-time winner and his emerging challenger are two of the best gladiators F1 has ever seenI was racing in Formula One when Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost were vying for the title and when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill went wheel to wheel, but without doubt Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen’s battle this season has been the best I have ever seen. Their season-decider finale at Abu Dhabi will bring the curtain down on what has been an absolute epic.This championship has something extra exciting about it because you have two of the best gladiators that we have even seen going head-to-head and it has been unmissable. The way this championship has gone up and down, that’s what you...
Dutchman could win drivers’ title at Sunday’s Saudi Arabian GP – though Lewis Hamilton will have something to say about thatThere is an aura of calm around Max Verstappen that, intriguingly, completely belies the intensity of his Formula One world championship title fight with Lewis Hamilton. It is this composed ability to deal with pressure, to recover from setbacks and find peak performance time after time, that has put him within striking distance of his first title, one which he could claim at Sunday’s debut Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.Yet alongside this maturity, this mental fortitude, there is also a boyish, eager thrill at simply being in the fight and it has been an infectious joy. A combination that he also...