2021 Formula One Saudi Arabian Grand Prix

F1 Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia Hamilton Verstappen.jpg

Who will win the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix?

  • Max Verstappen

    Votes: 1,117 46.4%

  • Lewis Hamilton

    Votes: 1,120 46.5%

  • Other Driver

    Votes: 172 7.1%
  • Total voters
    2,409
Just two races remain in this unforgettable 2021 F1 season, and both the drivers’ and constructors’ championships are still hotly contested as the teams head to Saudi Arabia.

Most Formula 1 fans are feeling some combination of excitement and exhaustion entering the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix this weekend. On one hand, the most tightly contested F1 championship in many years is a racing fan’s dream, but on the other hand the off-track drama has been a racing purist’s nightmare.

Amidst this on-track versus off-track furor, the 10 F1 teams and drivers are focused on securing or advancing their positions in the championship standings. Max Verstappen sits eight points ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the drivers’ standings. The pair have combined to win all but four races so far this season, and a win by either driver in Saudi Arabia will have a significant impact on the title outcome. A win by Hamilton will close the gap to two or fewer points entering the final race, and a win by Verstappen would reduce Hamilton’s hopes of taking the title to a few unlikely outcomes in Abu Dhabi.

Mercedes and Red Bull are just five points apart in the constructors’ standings entering Saudi Arabia. Valtteri Bottas was the first race retirement in Qatar, which limited Mercedes’ points to the 25 collected by Hamilton. 2nd and 4th place finishes by the Red Bull drivers gave them a significant points surge to help narrow the championship gap. Like the drivers’ standings, a lot is on the line in Saudi Arabia for the teams.

Jeddah Corniche Circuit is host to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix and should make for a compelling showcase of how fast the current generation of F1 cars is. Nearly 80% of the lap at this street circuit will be flat out for the drivers. Despite being over 6 kilometers long and encompassing 27 turns, qualifying laptimes will be well under one and a half minutes.

All eyes will be on the front of the field this weekend in this high-stakes race. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below on how you think this race will play out.

What are your thoughts on the upcoming Saudi Arabian Grand Prix? Let us know on Twitter at @RaceDepartment or in the comments section below!

Photo credits: Red Bull Content Pool
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About author
Mike Smith
Mike Smith
I have been obsessed with sim racing and racing games since the 1980's. My first taste of live auto racing was in 1988, and I couldn't get enough ever since. Lead writer for RaceDepartment, and owner of SimRacing604 and its YouTube channel. Favourite sims include Assetto Corsa Competizione, Assetto Corsa, rFactor 2, Automobilista 2, DiRT Rally 2 - On Twitter as @simracing604

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Comments

Richard Wilks
Enthilzha said:
I get your point about Verstappen and Hamilton being unable to race against each other without incident but to be fair on Hamilton, his reputation throughout his career has always been that of a very hard but clean and fair racer. Sure, like any driver, he makes mistakes occasionally which can cause incidents to happen but his record shows that he tries to fight hard but fair.

This year in Hungary, the duel between Hamilton and Alonso was a great example of two world-class drivers racing to the absolute edge but knowing where the line is and not stepping over it. It was a great demonstration of skill and respect for each other's safety in which both drivers understood that they could trust each other.

The only driver that Hamilton cannot consistently race side-by-side with without incident is Verstappen, but then that seems to be true of every driver - none can fight for position against Verstappen without fearing incident, whereas they all can against Hamilton or the other drivers.

I am convinced that Verstappen is easily a gifted enough driver to be able to race hard but fair, so the only conclusion I can come to is that he has a reckless and dangerous mindset in which he has the right to do things that others are not and in which other's safety is secondary to his need to win at all costs.

My personal feeling is that he has proven repeatedly to be too dangerous to be allowed on an F1 grid at this moment and I truly fear that someone, perhaps Max himself, is going to get seriously hurt due to his recklessness at some point.

It's a damn shame as Verstappen is an absolutely wonderful talent and a joy to watch at times - easily the most exciting and gifted since Hamilton himself came along, and I would love to see him fulfilling that ability without tarnishing his reputation.

I suspect that Verstappen will gradually mature and learn, just as Hamilton had to. Whilst he was always a clean racer, Hamilton was far more inconsistent and far more erratic with poorer racecraft earlier in his career. It is only over time that he has gained/learned that consistency, racecraft etc to become a 'complete' driver.
Click to expand...
I am sorry but your whole post is revisionim at it's finest.

Max is a dirty and ruthless driver since he entered F1, no question about it, and the FIA repeatedly failed to reign him in.

But Hamilton being clean all his career? Even LAUDA of all people said he was a menace and a danger in his early years! He crashed with almost everybody he fought for champioships, Rosberg, Vettel, Button, Massa (many times), Kimi, you name it, not to mention other poor sods like Albon. He got penalties for it, but also many incidents in which he didn't, and he is another case of someone who should have been reign back a long long time ago.

No, none of those two are clean drivers, sorry.
 
Mr. Malarkey
Premium
What an embarrassment of a weekend for F1. Inconsistent stewarding, weak racing control, and team principles and drivers acting like children and throwing tantrums and whining over the radio. Just awful.

Nearly every session was marred by incidents and safety cars and yellow and red flags. Hell, they couldn't even finish the F2 feature race because of crashes. This track is clearly not suitable for high level racing, but F1 just had to get a piece of that Saudi oil money (I won't even go into the politics). These races should never have taken place. We're lucky that no one ended up seriously injured or killed.

I'm not going to get into the Max/Ham fanboy war, but as for their crash, let's be clear about one thing: it doesn't happen if it wasn't for DRS (Dull Racing System). If cars can't overtake without being given some kind of artificial assistance, then change the freaking cars, not the rules.
 
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Enthilzha
Richard Wilks said:
I am sorry but your whole post is revisionim at it's finest.

Max is a dirty and ruthless driver since he entered F1, no question about it, and the FIA repeatedly failed to reign him in.

But Hamilton being clean all his career? Even LAUDA of all people said he was a menace and a danger in his early years! He crashed with almost everybody he fought for champioships, Rosberg, Vettel, Button, Massa (many times), Kimi, you name it, not to mention other poor sods like Albon. He got penalties for it, but also many incidents in which he didn't, and he is another case of someone who should have been reign back a long long time ago.

No, none of those two are clean drivers, sorry.
Click to expand...
Sure, if you go through any long-time racer's career you are going to find instances where they make mistakes and cause accidents and Hamilton is no different. He has definitely cocked-up numerous times and caused crashes - of that there is no doubt. But the fact remains that his reputation in the F1 community has always been of a driver who pushes hard to the absolute limit, but never purposely over (In the early days of his career he had a habit of taking himself out by pushing too hard, but it was normally just himself and rarely others he was endangering). Those errors he makes that all drivers commit have become increasingly rare over time and he does have an excellent ability now to race safely side-by-side with other drivers (Verstappen aside).

My point really is that whilst Hamilton makes mistakes (as they all do), they are always actual mistakes and not a result of being deliberately reckless or unclean in his driving. The vast majority of F1 drivers also try to race cleanly (I suspect that in the case of Mazepin, he hasn't got the ability/skillset to race both hard and fair regardless of attitude). Verstappen, on the other hand, I believe has a reckless attitude and is knowingly/deliberately risking accidents and ultimately the safety of himself and others. Vettel has done the same at times (though not as often); Schumacher, Senna and others also too, but in Verstappen's case it seems to be the rule and not the exception to behave like this.

Ultimately, if I was an F1 driver(fat chance with my abilities!), I would feel safe duelling hard against Hamilton and indeed, most of the grid, able to trust that my safety is their priority and vice-versa and in their ability to drive hard but safe. I definitely could not say the same about Verstappen.

Please don't think that I am a Verstappen-hater though. I love his talent and if he could just adjust his mindset, I would be a huge admirer of his.
 
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Richard Wilks
Enthilzha said:
Sure, if you go through any long-time racer's career you are going to find instances where they make mistakes and cause accidents and Hamilton is no different. He has definitely cocked-up numerous times and caused crashes - of that there is no doubt. But the fact remains that his reputation in the F1 community has always been of a driver who pushes hard to the absolute limit, but never purposely over (In the early days of his career he had a habit of taking himself out by pushing too hard, but it was normally just himself and rarely others he was endangering). Those errors he makes that all drivers commit have become increasingly rare over time and he does have an excellent ability now to race safely side-by-side with other drivers (Verstappen aside).

My point really is that whilst Hamilton makes mistakes (as they all do), they are always actual mistakes and not a result of being deliberately reckless or unclean in his driving. The vast majority of F1 drivers also try to race cleanly (I suspect that in the case of Mazepin, he hasn't got the ability/skillset to race both hard and fair regardless of attitude). Verstappen, on the other hand, I believe has a reckless attitude and is knowingly/deliberately risking accidents and ultimately the safety of himself and others. Vettel has done the same at times (though not as often); Schumacher, Senna and others also too, but in Verstappen's case it seems to be the rule and not the exception to behave like this.

Ultimately, if I was an F1 driver(fat chance with my abilities!), I would feel safe duelling hard against Hamilton and indeed, most of the grid, able to trust that my safety is their priority and vice-versa and in their ability to drive hard but safe. I definitely could not say the same about Verstappen.

Please don't think that I am a Verstappen-hater though. I love his talent and if he could just adjust his mindset, I would be a huge admirer of his.
Click to expand...
Thats all your opinion, that you try to extend to reality. Thats not what i, and for sure not what guys like Massa, Rosberg or Albon think. But if you want to believe that, go ahead. His tactics of holding up Rosberg, or his consistent history of pushing other drivers wide and off the track (a move that MV copied to perfection) tell a very different story to many of us, and many in the F1 community.

So in a way you reap what you sow. I think LH is the last one that can complain about something dished out towards him at this point, but complain he does. A lot. And we all lose respect for the sport and it's agents in the process, sadly.

Edit: and for the sake of consistency, i should point out that others also got way too lenient treatment during their career, maybe Schumacher being the best example.

I will just leave it here that in 1989, Mansell took Senna out of the Portuguese grand prix in an incident very similar to what happened in Silverstone, when he was already getting a black flag even. As a "reward", he sat the next grand prix watching at home. I wish the FIA had that sort of balls these days...
 
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Patrik Marek
I don't hink, the first penatly was too hard imo, which resulted into situation where the second penalty was probably justified. From the videos it didnt' look like he was breaking just before the hit, but FIA had telemetry and they said he was ( although not sure it it was clarified if there was 2.4 G sudden breaking just before the hit, or if the 2.4G was during his slowing down from 8th gear to 3rd)

it's quite sad that this is how it goes , but both drivers play dirty
you can say whatever you want, but the amount of danger that Hamilton put Verstapen in high speed corner in Silverstone, is nothing compared to these scraps under breaking in relatively slow corners
 
Enthilzha
Richard Wilks said:
Thats all your opinion, that you try to extend to reality. Thats not what i, and for sure not what guys like Massa, Rosberg or Albon think. But if you want to believe that, go ahead. His tactics of holding up Rosberg, or his consistent history of pushing other drivers wide and off the track (a move that MV copied to perfection) tell a very different story to many of us, and many in the F1 community.

So in a way you reap what you sow. I think LH is the last one that can complain about something dished out towards him at this point, but complain he does. A lot. And we all lose respect for the sport and it's agents in the process, sadly.

Edit: and for the sake of consistency, i should point out that others also got way too lenient treatment during their career, maybe Schumacher being the best example.

I will just leave it here that in 1989, Mansell took Senna out of the Portuguese grand prix in an incident very similar to what happened in Silverstone, when he was already getting a black flag even. As a "reward", he sat the next grand prix watching at home. I wish the FIA had that sort of balls these days...
Click to expand...
At the most basic level, I think we have just one driver on the grid being knowingly and deliberately dangerous.

Anyway, I think we should agree to disagree and leave it that. Regards
 
C
Having massive tarmac run offs is the reason this happens, you can take a risk and not worry about hitting a wall, sand, or a tyre stack.
Hate the game not the player.
If any driver out brakes themselves what are they supposed to do?
Just stop and retire?

The idea is safety and to keep drivers in the race despite a mistake.
It works and has benifitted many drivers, many drivers down the years.

Having said all of that, all i care about is next season seeing a driver who has been in one opf the worst cars, then drive a full season in the best over the last several seasons.

People who pretend its all about a driver will be forced to see that its all about the car bar maybe 10%..... (Martin Brundles words)
 
Mr. Malarkey
Premium
Enthilzha said:
At the most basic level, I think we have just one driver on the grid being knowingly and deliberately dangerous.

Anyway, I think we should agree to disagree and leave it that. Regards
Click to expand...


Both of them are being jerks and crybabies (and I'm saying that as someone who is rooting for one of those drivers). And the team principals are even worse. This should be the most exciting final race of any season in recent memory, but instead it's just turned into a bunch of whining and crying and name-calling and blaming and accusing. I'm not even looking forward to next weekend. It's going to be a ****-show, and both teams - drivers and principals - are going to be insufferable, no matter who wins or loses. What we've learned this season is that this is a sport filled with a bunch of spoiled man-babies who need to grow the f*ck up. I long for the days where real grown-ups like Fangio or Clark were respectful to their opponents and were respected in return. Win or lose, good sportsmanship matters. That's a lesson that both drivers, as well as Whiny Spice and Dorothy's Little Dog, need to learn.
 
D
This year's competition between Max & Lewis reminds me of a few years ago when Vettel had a real chance to win the title. As it became apparent the early season advantage was slipping away, he took more and more chances and made more mental errors. A seasoned 4 time champ.
Almost every year we have seen Max get called out for an occasional dangerous pass or some contact. But this year, as it has become apparent the RB is NOT the equal of the Merc, his level of stress has influenced his driving to be even more aggressive. Won't matter methinks, in the end.
 
muzikant
Mr. Malarkey said:
Both of them are being jerks and crybabies (and I'm saying that as someone who is rooting for one of those drivers). And the team principals are even worse. This should be the most exciting final race of any season in recent memory, but instead it's just turned into a bunch of whining and crying and name-calling and blaming and accusing. I'm not even looking forward to next weekend. It's going to be a ****-show, and both teams - drivers and principals - are going to be insufferable, no matter who wins or loses. What we've learned this season is that this is a sport filled with a bunch of spoiled man-babies who need to grow the f*ck up. I long for the days where real grown-ups like Fangio or Clark were respectful to their opponents and were respected in return. Win or lose, good sportsmanship matters. That's a lesson that both drivers, as well as Whiny Spice and Dorothy's Little Dog, need to learn.
Click to expand...
no you are wrong as long as the FIA continues to give presents to Mercedes. Compare it to a football match that runs from hand. In other words, the arbitration is rubbish. If this doesn't change it will only get worse
 
muzikant
davehenrie said:
This year's competition between Max & Lewis reminds me of a few years ago when Vettel had a real chance to win the title. As it became apparent the early season advantage was slipping away, he took more and more chances and made more mental errors. A seasoned 4 time champ.
Almost every year we have seen Max get called out for an occasional dangerous pass or some contact. But this year, as it has become apparent the RB is NOT the equal of the Merc, his level of stress has influenced his driving to be even more aggressive. Won't matter methinks, in the end.
Click to expand...
you forget the help of the FIA it is not unimportant
 
P
davehenrie said:
This year's competition between Max & Lewis reminds me of a few years ago when Vettel had a real chance to win the title. As it became apparent the early season advantage was slipping away, he took more and more chances and made more mental errors. A seasoned 4 time champ.
Almost every year we have seen Max get called out for an occasional dangerous pass or some contact. But this year, as it has become apparent the RB is NOT the equal of the Merc, his level of stress has influenced his driving to be even more aggressive. Won't matter methinks, in the end.
Click to expand...
Like Hamilton did in Silverstone when the RB was faster? And when Hamilton destroyed Gasly’s race and first podium 2 times? I agree with you on Max’s mistakes and agressiveness, but Lewis does the same when he is put under pressure and not in the fastest car on the grid.
 
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Damage Inc
Sasha Jednak said:
Again?! You need to be more consistent, I stopped in 2019 and after watching highlights of yesterday for sure I am staying out until 2026. :roflmao:

Back to topic, fans you can continue "measuring"... (Hope this is okay enough for post, if not sorry and censor it)
Click to expand...
I originally stopped 2016ish, bored of Merc dominance and just fed up of gimmicks like DRS. And it's the farce of DRS in this race is the final straw again for me again (not helped by Merc getting back on top again (yawn)). The sooner that crap goes from F1 the better IMO. Who on earth thinks it's good for a driver to hang back when he's been given the place back because he doesn't want to be first in the DRS zone...ffs farcical IMO.
 
Mr. Malarkey
Premium
muzikant said:
no you are wrong as long as the FIA continues to give presents to Mercedes. Compare it to a football match that runs from hand. In other words, the arbitration is rubbish. If this doesn't change it will only get worse
Click to expand...

Starting off a post with "no you are wrong" isn't going to sway anyone. The FIA is inconsistent, not biased.

I'm not going to say which driver I am rooting for, because fanboys will accuse ME of bias. I just want both drivers and teams to start showing good sportsmanship. Insulting the marshals and race director, throwing headphones across the garage, accusing each other of cheating, whining to the race director over every little incident, etc etc. It's all bad sportsmanship and it all makes F1 unpleasant to follow, unless you're a fan of crappy reality tv. I suppose it will make for some entertaining episodes of Drive To Survive, if juvenile backbiting is what you find entertaining. It may bring in fans from Netflix who like that kind of childish drama, but it is a turn-off to me as a racing fan.
 

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