The beginning of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen's storied 2021 rivalry came all the way back in the Bahrain GP of the last season.
Follow Us
The story of Mercedes’ domination in Formula 1 in the past few years is well documented. However, Max Verstappen clinching the driver’s title in 2021 broke a cycle of dominance stretching back to 2014. And the first proper signs of this actually happening came in the 2021 Bahrain GP.
The 2021 F1 season got underway under the lights at Sakhir. And the race was a closely contested one, showing that at long last Mercedes had a rival who could beat them.
The Silver Arrows would still claim the constructor’s title but lost the driver’s championship in controversial circumstances.
With the F1 season set to get underway this weekend, let us now look back at the 2021 Bahrain GP.
Coming into the 2021 season, there were already hints that Red Bull finally had a car to compete for race wins – and world championships.
The truncated pre-season testing saw the Milton Keynes-based team look consistently quick. To make things better, Verstappen topped the timesheets in all the three practice sessions before qualifying.
As if to prove that form was no fluke, the Dutchman also took pole on Saturday. Hamilton, the defending world champion, took second, but was over 6 tenths of a second behind Verstappen in his Q3 time.
Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton’s Mercedes teammate, took third. But the main focus was on this new potential title rivalry between Hamilton and Verstappen.
At the start of the race, Verstappen pulled away from Hamilton and Bottas, prompting Mercedes to roll the dice early in their pit stops. Hamilton came in on Lap 14 for fresh hard tyres.
The gamble, as it were, was whether or not Hamilton could make those tyres last while taking a win. Red Bull, by contrast, chose not to pit Verstappen right then.
Also read: Bahrain GP – George Russell acknowledges Mercedes’ struggles in FP2
He pitted four laps later but took on another set of mediums, thus making it evident it was a two-stop strategy. However, he was now behind Hamilton on track.
Not that it mattered; the Dutchman maintained his pace and forced Mercedes to change strategies. Hamilton came into the pits for a tyre change on Lap 29, as they felt this would give him a better chance to fight off Verstappen.
However, he would still be doing it on significantly older tyres as Red Bull waited till Lap 40 to pit Verstappen. This gave him 16 laps on newer tyres to hunt down Hamilton.
And hunt him down he did; at the start of Lap 53 he was less than a second behind Hamilton, and received DRS assistance going into Turn 1.
Hamilton held him off but Verstappen got past him on Turn 4 and took the lead of the race. However, he overtook while exceeding track limits on the turn.
Therefore he was instructed to hand the position back, which he did later in the lap. However, the close proximity of the cars meant Verstappen had more chances of going for an overtake.
But he could not in the end; the turbulence from Hamilton’s Mercedes began to cause Verstappen’s car to oversteer.
As a result, Hamilton held him off to win the race – but only just, as Verstappen finished less than a second behind him.
The beginning of the 2021 season would ebb and flow, but Red Bull soon established a foothold as the season wore on. At one point, it seemed likely they would romp to both titles.
However, Mercedes and Hamilton fought back hard. Indeed, they went into the Abu Dhabi GP – the season finale – level on points.
That race ended in controversy, but the season as a whole was entirely memorable for fans.
