The 2021 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 STC Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2021) was a Formula One motor race held on 5 December 2021 at the Jeddah Corniche Circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It was the 21st and penultimate round of the 2021 Formula One World Championship and the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton won the 50-lap race from the pole position; Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing finished second, and Hamilton's teammate Valtteri Bottas came in third place.
Hamilton took pole position by recording the fastest lap time of qualifying. Verstappen, his championship rival, was on pace to lap a faster time, but crashed at the final corner on his final flying lap. The race was stopped twice in the first 20 laps due to separate accidents; prior to the second red flag, Verstappen had assumed the lead because the Mercedes drivers made pit stops, but Hamilton attempted to pass Verstappen in turn one, so Verstappen veered off-course to defend his lead. F1 race director Michael Masi made a deal with Red Bull, permitting Verstappen to restart in third place, behind Esteban Ocon and Hamilton.
Verstappen quickly got by the two drivers, but Hamilton gradually built a faster pace and tried to pass him in turn one on lap 37. Verstappen made another aggressive defence and was thus forced to give up his position. However, he braked suddenly in the 26th turn, causing Hamilton to run into his rear. Following another failed defence tactic on lap 42, Verstappen let Hamilton by for good on the next lap. After the race, Verstappen received a five-second time penalty for cutting the second turn and a ten-second time penalty for braking erratically, which did not affect his position.
Verstappen and Hamilton entered the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix with 369.5 points each in the World Drivers' Championship, the first time since 1974 that the top-two drivers were level on points with one race remaining in an F1 season. Because of Sergio Pérez's involvement in an accident and subsequent retirement, Mercedes widened their gap over Red Bull Racing–Honda in the World Constructors' Championship.
Background
The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix was first announced to be included on the 2021 Formula One World Championship calendar in November 2020 as part of a ten-year partnership between the sport and Saudi Arabia. It was the 21st of 22 rounds on the 2021 schedule. The original date of the race was 28 November, but it was rescheduled to 5 December due to the postponement of the Australian Grand Prix owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The track at which the Grand Prix took place was the Jeddah Corniche Circuit, a 27-turn, street circuit in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which was designed by F1 track architect Carsten Tilke. Construction on the circuit began in April 2021 and was concluded days prior to the race. The track was anticipated to be one of the fastest on the F1 schedule, with predicted top speeds of . Three detection zones were implemented around the circuit for the cars' drag reduction system (DRS), the first in between turns 17 and 18, the second towards turn 22, and the third towards turn 27, which were intended to encourage overtaking. Tyre supplier Pirelli brought white-banded hard-compound tyres, yellow-banded medium-compound tyres, and red-banded soft-compound tyres.
Entries
There were 10 teams, each representing a different constructor, that entered two race drivers for the event. One of the 20 drivers, Nikita Mazepin, wound up making their final career start in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix because he withdrew from the final round of the season—the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix—due to a positive COVID-19 test, and was replaced ahead of the 2022 season after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. Alpine ran with a new livery for their two cars, driven by Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, to commemorate Castrol's 100th race as their sponsor.
Championship standings before the race Heading into the race, Max Verstappen led the World Drivers' Championship with 351.5 points, eight more than second-place Lewis Hamilton. Valtteri Bottas was third with 203 points, Sergio Pérez was fourth on 190, and Lando Norris was fifth on 153. The World Constructors' Championship was led by Mercedes on 546.5 points, as Red Bull Racing–Honda stood second on 541.5 points. Behind them, Ferrari, McLaren–Mercedes, and Alpine–Renault rounded out the top-five in the standings with 297.5, 258, and 137 points, respectively.
In the season's previous round, the Qatar Grand Prix, Verstappen overcame a five-place grid penalty to improve to second place by the fourth lap. Although Verstappen gained a crucial bonus point for recording the race's fastest lap, he was unable to challenge Hamilton for the win, causing the gap between the two drivers to decrease from 14 to eight points. With two races left in the season, the deficit between the top-two drivers was the closest since 2010. Each race offered a maximum of 26 points, so Verstappen needed to outscore Hamilton by at least 18 points to clinch the title in Saudi Arabia. Bottas' retirement at Qatar also allowed Red Bull to reel in Mercedes' championship lead from 11 to five points, and with a maximum of 44 points available for the constructors, Mercedes needed to earn at least 40 more points than Red Bull at Saudi Arabia to win the championship.
Verstappen and Hamilton's title fight had brought much media attention as the season progressed, with many fans comparing it to the infamous rivalry between Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna. The two drivers had already collided into each other in three Grands Prix that season (Britain, Italy, and São Paulo), and as it became clear that the title fight would only intensify over the next two weeks, many feared that the championship would be determined by another crash, similar to the 1989 and 1990 Japanese Grand Prix. 1996 World Drivers' Champion Damon Hill, who lost the 1994 title after being hit by Michael Schumacher in that year's Australian Grand Prix, hoped that the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA; Formula One's governing body) could "take steps to prevent an unhappy ending to this". Hamilton aimed to win his eighth championship, a feat that no F1 driver had accomplished before, but stated that he felt more relaxed than when he first contended for an F1 title because: "I've been around a long time. It's not my first." Verstappen also held a composed demeanor entering the event, assured that he "(doesn't) need to overthink or stress out about a lot of things to be quick.”
Mercedes and Red Bull had also been at odds over the past two races, beginning with the São Paulo Grand Prix, because Red Bull team principal Christian Horner had claimed that the main plane of the Mercedes' rear wing was flexing backwards in order to reduce drag and increase straight-line speeds, thus giving Hamilton an illegal performance advantage over Verstappen. Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff refuted the accusation and quipped that Horner was "chasing ghosts", which was proven true as the Mercedes' rear wings in São Paulo and Qatar both passed tests conducted by the FIA for their rigidity. Horner's complaints were somewhat tempered because of a decrease in Hamilton's straight-line speed at Qatar, but this was only because Hamilton had used an older engine; Wolff confirmed that Hamilton was to use Mercedes' newest engine unit for Saudi Arabia because the track featured several long straights which required more power than downforce.
Saudi Arabia sportswashing accusations
The decision to host a race in Saudi Arabia drew condemnation and accusations of sportswashing from several human rights organizations. Felix Jakens, the head of campaigns of Amnesty International UK, warned that the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix would "be part of ongoing efforts to sportswash the country’s abysmal human rights record" and called on the drivers, owners, and teams to speak on the human rights issues within the country, while Human Rights Watch director Minky Worden felt that the race was "part of a cynical strategy to distract from Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses, detention and torture of human rights defenders and women’s rights activists." A group of British politicians, some of whom were members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords, wrote a letter to F1 chief executive officer (CEO) Stefano Domenicali, urging that he use the Grand Prix as an opportunity to denounce the country's use of death penalties for children and non-violent offenders. Hamilton admitted that he was not comfortable racing in Saudi Arabia because of its human rights violations, but confirmed that he would still don a progress pride flag design on his helmet that he had introduced in the Qatar Grand Prix to raise awareness about the country's laws that illegalize same-sex marriages. Fellow driver Sebastian Vettel invited a handful of female drivers to a local kart track that he rented in order to learn about the discrimination that women face in Saudi Arabia; he considered it a "great way to kick off the weekend".
Several high-ranking figures of F1 held a positive outlook about the upcoming Saudi Arabian Grand Prix despite the criticism. Wolff noted the lack of segregation between men and women who spectated a recent Formula E race at the Riyadh Street Circuit, and Horner felt that teams should not dictate where F1 hosts races and trusted the sport in making decisions that are "right for the interests of the sport". During the weekend of the British Grand Prix in July, race promoter Prince Khalid Al-Faisal told reporters that he met with "a couple of drivers" at Silverstone and was open to talking with any others that had concerns about the event.
Death of Frank Williams On 28 November, one week before the race, Williams co-founder and former owner Sir Frank Williams died at the age of 79. Williams, whose team won 16 world championships (seven drivers' and nine constructors' titles) at the time of his death, had not been seen in public since the 2019 British Grand Prix due to his deteriorating health. Several teams sported decals on their cars in tribute to Williams, and a minute of silence took place approximately one hour before the start of the race. After the drivers completed their reconnaissance laps, former Williams driver Damon Hill drove a lap of honour in the FW07, Williams' first championship-winning car used in the 1980 season. Additionally, on the eve of the race weekend, Williams CEO Jost Capito announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus and was therefore forced to miss the weekend with the team.
Practice There were three 60-minute practice sessions that preceded the race; the first two sessions were held on Friday, 3 December, and the third was on Saturday, 4 December. Hamilton led the first practice session on a dry track on Friday afternoon with a lap time of 1 minute and 29.786 seconds, while Verstappen trailed him by just over five hundredths of a second. Bottas was in third, with Pierre Gasly in fourth and Antonio Giovinazzi in fifth. The session went without any major accident, but towards its end, Ocon and Verstappen went off the track and nearly collided in turn one as the former attempted to let the latter by.