The first ever race in Saudi Arabia produced crashes, red flags, controversy and excitement under lights from start to finish and so for that and everything in between here is our 2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result Review Summary.
Our review covers what happened in the race so you don’t have to in the laps that matter. Plus we throw in our Race Ratings, the Best (Great) and Worst (Grape) drivers of the race weekend.
The perfect bite sized review for those who couldn’t be bothered.
The 2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result Review + Great and Grape gives you just enough to catch up, and stand by for our Power Rankings which highlight our driver of the season so far.
2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result Race – THE LAPS THAT MATTERED
Didn’t see the race live? Don’t have time to watch the whole race? Well here are the top laps where stuff happened. Normally it is five or ten, so you know it was a good race if there’s more than ten.
We write these live as we go, sort of like a minute by minute for the football, but marginally more interesting.
Lap 1 – The front five cars leave the line and head into the first corner in grid grid order which is great for the Mercedes team as it means Lewis Hamilton is in front AND has his team mate Valtteri Nottas behind him. Talking of team mates Sergio Perez nearly runs into his team mate trying to steal fourth from Charles Leclerc. In news from further back, McLarens both have a good start with Norris gaining one place and Ricciardo two. Pierre Gasly wastes his great qualifying again with a first lap demotion.
ORDER – HAM BOT VER LEC PER NOR OCO GAS RIC GIO
Lap 4 – The cars at the front appear to have socially distanced themselves, with a WHO approved gap between most of the front runners. You have to go as far back as Carlos Sainz in 12th as the rule breaker as he makes progress from 15th on the grid.
Lap 5 – For the record for Championship fans (F! not the football) Lewis Hamilton is 1.6 seconds in front of Bottas in second who is a further 1.4 in front of his main title rival Max Verstappen. Hamilton sets a fastest lap on lap 5.
Lap 7 – Alfa discard Antonio Giovinazzi overtakes Fernando Alonso for 10th. Just ahead Daniel Ricciardo is looking to steal the 8th placed candy from the Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly. A lap later Alonso drops another place back courtesy of Carlos Sainz. Both he and Ricciardo are on the alternative tyre strategy of Hard. The Australian gets by Gasly on lap 9 too.
ORDER HAM BOT VER LEC PER NOR OCO RIC GAS GIO
Lap 9 – At the front, Lewis Hamilton has stretched his lead to Bottas in second to 2.6 and 4.0 second to third placed Max Verstappen. But…..
Lap 10 – SAFETY CAR – Haas driver Mick Schumacher has binned it in a big way, where Leclerc did in Practice. This will see Lewis Hamilton’s lead evaporate and he pits for new tyres. Bottas too stops for new boots, as does most of the top ten. Max Verstappen does not and takes the lead. Other buck trending drivers are Esteban Ocon and Daniel Ricciardo. It’s not the first time a Schumacher F1 accident has livened up a title battle.
Lap 13 – RED FLAG – The race has been stopped as the barriers need some TLC after the Schumacher crash. This is now a massive advantage to Red Bull, as instead of being a pit stop of his title rival, he will now have track position and a free change of tyres. It will also put the Championship rivals 1st and 2nd on the restart, which could be very interesting given how badly they have raced alongside each other this season.
ORDER – VER HAM BOT OCO RIC LEC GAS PER SAI GIO
Lap 15 – RACE RESTARTS – After lap 14 is lost getting the cars back to the grid, the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix gets underway from a standing start on lap 15.
Now this was a race restart…..Lewis Hamilton outdrags Max Verstappen off the line and is well ahead going into the first corner. Max Verstappen then cuts the first corner and then cuts in front of Lewis Hamilton and is offered the choice of yield or crash. Which was mighty unfair. So in reality, Max Verstappen has two potential penalties – one where he should give back a position for missing the corner and gaining an advantage, and the second is for basically creating a situation where he has run Hamilton into the scenario of yield or crash. For the corner cutting 5 second penalty was the norm from F2.
Further behind, chaos. Sergio Perez is into the wall after chopping Charles Leclerc into the wall. This then causes the field to bunch up instantly, which leads to Nikita Mazepin trashing the other Haas as he had no choice when confronted with the rapidly approaching rear end of George Russell’s Williams.
The track is full of debris, and the race is red flagged for a second time. The winner is second placed Esteban Ocon, who may inherit first place if Verstappen is forced to give up a place. Ocon did well to grab second in the chaos.
Still unfair on Lewis Hamilton, as Verstappen’s driving cost him a place.
Daniel Ricciardo’s hard tyre-no pit strategy is looking OK too, he sits in fourth.
The Red Bull to FIA radio discussion provide the Red Flag entertainment. FIA asking Red Bull to drop behind Lewis Hamilton on the restart.
The end result is that Ocon will restart in first place, Lewis Hamilton second and Max Verstappen third. All of which is fair enough.
Lap 15 – RED FLAG AGAIN
Lap 17 – RACE RESTARTS – After a handful of racing laps in the last hour, another formation lap leading into the third standing start of the race. Here we go again, again.
Lewis Hamilton gets off the line well, better than Ocon, but storming up the inside is Max Verstappen who takes the lead into the first corner. Ocon and Hamilton almost or do touch, and the Alpine stays second from Hamilton. Verstappen zooms off into the distance, and the drivers behave themselves behind. Hamilton gets past Ocon just before lap 17 ends.
ORDER – VER HAM OCO RIC BOT GAS GIO VET TSU LEC
Lap 20 – Max Verstappen is 1.3 seconds in front of Hamilton, but has claimed over his radio to the team of a lack of power. He did just set a fastest lap so who knows. The pair are trading fastest laps as the gaps floats between 1.0 and 1.3 seconds.
Lap 22 – VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR – The VSC is deployed after Yuki Tsunoda ends up in the barriers after pushing Sebastian Vettel into a spin. They were battling for 9th-ish. Both cars continue. The race restarts at full pace on Lap 25.
Lap 27 – The gap between the front two closes to under a second for a brief moment but then expands back to the 1.3/1.4 second norm.
Lap 28 – Further bck Vettel has his second crash in a few laps, as this time he tangles with Kimi Raikkonen, which is mildly Vettel’s fault. The Virtual Safety Car is called upon briefly to remove some more debris.
ORDER – VER HAM OCO RIC BOT GAS GIO SAI LEC STR
Lap 30 – The Virtual Safety Car comes out again to clean up the mess that wasn’t quite cleaned up last time.
Lap 33 – Racing restarts at full pace again. Immediately Verstappen is 1.4 seconds down the road and out of DRS.
Lap 35 – There’s another piece of debris in the middle of the track, perhaps another VSC is coming. Meanwhile the two up the front continue to charge, and Hamilton is now within the magical second region and will be getting DRS ready. Just as it was looking exciting the VSC comes out so the piece of car can be collected. 20 seconds later it’s all over, but the Mercedes is right on the Red Bull wings now.
Lap 36 – Lewis Hamilton – armed with DRS – pulls alongside the Red Bull of Verstappen and is ahead going into the first corner again. Verstappen outbrakes the Mercedes but slides and runs wide over the run off. Again Hamilton avoids a crash with Verstappen. Surely the Red Bull driver has to allow Hamilton in front.
Lap 37 – WOW – Lewis Hamilton runs into the back of Max Verstappen as he is told to give first place to the Mercedes. The style of handing back the place is very strange. Instead of moving aside, Verstappen basically slows down in the middle of the track without any sign he was doing so. The FIA are investigating. To Hamilton is appeared a brake test, to Red Bull they can say they tried to give the place back.
Lap 38 – The damage on Hamilton’s car is surprisingly minor. And he continues with a slightly ruined front wing. But strangely, despite the order to give back the place Verstappen remains in front. But now Hamilton has a car that is not at 100% and Verstappen is two seconds up the road.
Lap 42 – The fallout continued from the front two battle. It’s a bit of a shame they can’t race without clashing and crashing. Verstappen cheekily lets Hamilton gets past in a spot where he can immediately take Lewis back on the main straight with DRS.
Lap 43 – Max Verstappen gets a Five Second Penalty anyway as they start lap 43. Further along during lap 43, Lewis Hamilton overtakes Max Verstappen for real this time. Verstappen appears to be drifting off behind. The gap from Hamilton to Verstappen is three seconds. The change in position means the title contenders are level on points. Hamilton currently has fastest lap, but you can see a late Red Bull tyre change coming to grab that point back.
Lap 47 – Almost forgetting there’s a rest of the race, Bottas is challenging Ocon for the final podium spot. Lewis Hamilton sets another fastest lap for fun.
Lap 48 – Verstappen is slowing to look after his tyres, so no fastest lap coming. This means he will lead the Championship by virtue of countback heading into the final race. Which sadly means if they crash he will win the Championship. And he has looked a little keen for that outcome based on his driving today.
Lap 50 – Lewis Hamilton wins the first Saudi Arabia Grand Prix by seven-ish seconds. Valtteri Bottas steals third place from Ocon within metres of the finish line. Behind those cars it was refreshing reward for Ricciardo and Giovinazzi and some Ferrari points.
FINAL ORDER – HAM VER BOT OCO RIC GAS LEC SAI GIO NOR
2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result – RACE RATING
We rate the big race itself so we know which races to go back and watch in the off season or one to simply remember the winner for the post season quiz nights.
SEASON IMPORTANCE – 10/10
Well what more do you need for season importance. Near misses, clashes, FIA back and forths, and the end result is the two title contenders are equal on points.
ON TRACK ACTION – 9 /10
The on track action is aimed at the front two who provided plenty of action throughout. The Championship will probably end in tears based on today’s driving, but it will be exciting. Further back there was some good racing from time to time, and a few ordinary pieces of driving that caused the occasional safety cars.
ENDING 7 / 10
The last ten laps or so were quite a step down in excitement from the lap 36 to lap 43 range, but it was still tense enough.
OVERALL RATING 26 / 30
So much to take in here, we hope the above summary does it some justice.
2021 SEASON RACE RANKINGS
Bahrain GP – 25/30
Emilia-Romagna GP – 17/30
Portuguese GP – 11/30
Spanish GP – 18/30
Monaco GP – 12/30
Azerbaijan GP – 23/30
French GP – 22/30
Styrian GP – 12/30
Austrian GP – 20/30
British GP – 22/30
Hungarian GP – 26/30
Belgian GP – 0/30
Dutch GP – 12/30
Italian GP – 25/30
Russian GP – 26/30
Turkish GP – 13/30
US GP – 21/30
Mexican GP – 22/30
Brazilian GP – 21/30
Qatar GP – 19/30
2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result – Great & Grape
Here we go through the field and highlight the three drivers we think deserve a little extra love, and one driver whose had the grapest weekend of all.
These points get added to our Driver of the Season scores. Five points for a great nomination, and -5 for the worst or grapest driver in the pack. Then it is +2 / -2 for honourable or dishonourable mentions.
It used to be called the good, bad and ugly, but everyone is using that now. And who doesn’t like grapes.
THE GREAT-EST – LEWIS HAMILTON
Got the win and levelled the Championship despite multiple run-ins with Max Verstappen.
THE GREAT – ESTEBAN OCON
Took advantage of the red flags and lack of a tyre stop before the first flag to inherit the lead on the second restart.. Had third place stolen from him on the line of the last lap. But thoroughly deserved the podium.
THE GREAT – DANIEL RICCIARDO
A good weekend for a change. Took a gamble on hard tyres which paid off early, then didn’t pit with the first safety car, and took advantage of that for the rest of the race.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
ANTONIO GIOVINAZZI – Very solid performance from the soon to be former F1 driver – ninth was a good reward for a solid weekend.
THE GRAPE-EST – MAX VERSTAPPEN
Perhaps harsh, but he caused one collision and created at least three more situations where contact had to be avoided by Lewis Hamilton. He claims he’s racing, but he did cut the corners multiple times. His driving for the swap place on lap 37 was at a minimum bizarre. It leads one to think that he won’t think twice about contact in the final race.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
MICK SCHUMACHER – Despite having a pretty decent first season in a under performing car, his crash which brought out the Safety Car wasn’t one of his better pieces of driving.
SERGIO PEREZ – Essentially caused the second red flag by squeezing Charles Leclerc into the wall which then squeezed the Ferrari in his car. Which then caused chaos further back. It also caused a red flag which meant his team mate dropped to third at the restart and now no longer had his team mate for help.
YUKI TSUNODA – Another wasted weekend with a crash. This time with Sebastian Vettel.
2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix Result – Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the 2021 Saudi Arabia Grand Prix and the overall 2021 F1 Season Power Rankings leader/s.
Read our last edition from after the Qatar Grand Prix here.
