The Championship battle is well and truly on as Lewis Hamilton closed the gap on Max Verstappen with an easy win in the Qatar Grand Prix, and to capture that and everything in between here is our 2021 Qatar 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 Qatar 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 Qatar 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 – Lewis Hamilton gets off the line perfectly and takes the lead into the first corner. Pierre Gasly and Fernando Alonso debate second place, they swap positions in the first couple of corners, but eventually Alonso makes his way past. Alonso also had time to shut the door on Max Verstappen who made a great start from his extended grid slot. Verstappen dices and wins with Lando Norris and is fourth, up three spots from his demoted grid slot. Valtteri Nottas offers up a pretty meek first lap and is outside the top ten. Daniel Ricciardo double down on his shit grid slot and drops to 16th by lap one.
ORDER – HAM ALO GAS VER NOR OCO SAI SAI TSU STR PER
Lap 2- In an effort to make up for his pisspoor qualifying Sergio Perez gets past Lance Stroll for 9th. Early laps going quite well for Red Bull.
Lap 4- Max Verstappen makes easy work of his sort-of team mate Pierre Gasly for third. How convenient. But probably would have happened anyway.
Lap 5 – A lap later Max Verstappen passes Fernando Alonso for second even easier. So now it is down to a Hamilton-Verstappen 1-2, just the way the fans and title race like it. After a full lap of clean air, Verstappen is around four seconds behind Hamilton.
Lap 7-8 – Sergio Perez is up to 7th after an entertaining couple of laps playing with Carlos Sainz. He gets Ocon at some stage too. Meanwhile, Valtteri Nottas is given a hurry up by his team, the Finn is stuck in 11th and struggling to make a pass.
Lap 9 – What would we know? Nottas gets past Tsunoda for 10th. Then Lance Stroll for 9th. Tsunoda is first to make a pit stop on lap 10. Lando Norris and Pierre Gasly fighting over fourth is pretty entertaining.
ORDER – HAM VER ALO GAS NOR PER OCO SAI BOT STR
Lap 12 – Lando Norris gets past Pierre Gasly for fourth. He’s three second behind Alonso in third. But a staggering 24 second + lead. That’s probably a pit stop already. Perez gets by Gasly not long after too. A decent race for the Mexican, but all too often after weak qualifying.
Lap 15 – Nottas overtakes Carlos Sainz. He is up to 7th, informed he is fighting for third place. Basically him v Perez for the final podium spots. The Mercedes driver is 6 seconds behind Perez.
Lap 16 – Perez passes Lando Norris. Shame the mixed grid is heading towards status quo after less than a third of the race. Another disappointment is the
Lap 18 – Max Verstappen surprisingly pits from second. And stays second. Just one second in front of Fernando Alonso who is third but hasn’t yet pit.
Lap 19 – Lewis Hamilton also pits and keeps his lead. He is a full ten seconds in front. of Max Verstappen Perez pits the next lap too.
ORDER – HAM VER ALO NOR BOT OCO SAI STR LEC RIC
Lap 23 – Quick check down the field, and bloody hell – Pierre Gasly in down in 13th. He has pit though. Further forward, number two drivers Perez and Nottas make a pass each to move up.
Lap 24 – Fernando Alonso pits and rejoins 8th in front of Sergio Perez. Norris pits on lap 27 and ends up 11th and one place behind Gasly.
Lap 28 – Alonso and Perez get past Charles Leclerc within a lap. When Sainz pits a lap later they are fighting for fourth. Alonso is driving a super race. Perez too.
Lap 29 – Perez gets past Alonso for that fourth place. So after all that it is the top four cars in the top four spots.
Lap 33 – Valtteri Bottas’ develops a puncture and drops from third to P14. He needed a pitstop for tyres, but probably not the Caravan speed three quarter lap to get back to the pits to change them.
Lap 37 – Pierre Gasly makes his second tyre stop. The first driver to do so. He ends up 11th which is still good enough to stay in front of Daniel Ricciardo who is invisible once again.
ORDER – HAM VER PER ALO NOR OCO STR SAI LEC VET
Lap 38 – Gap check – Lewis Hamilton has an eight seconds gap to Max Verstappen. The Red Bull driver in second has a 44 second lead over his teammate. The rest of the top ten have a comfortable gap to the car behind.
Lap 42 – Max Verstappen pits for a second time for tyres. He remains second but interestingly behind the lapped 12th placed Daniel Ricciardo.
Lap 43 – Mercedes cover the Red Bull pitstop, and pit for new tyres too for Lewis Hamilton. The end result is Max Verstappen is around the eight second mark behind Lewis Hamilton.
Lap 50 – A bit of status quo for a few laps, then Bottas pits to retire, ending an ordinary race. Lando Norris pits again and drops to 11th looks like could be puncture, George Russell strolls around the circuit with a broken front nose after a tyre failure.
Lap 52 – Although it is far down the field, Nicholas Latifi’s left front fails. He doesn’t even make it back to the pits. Could this be an exciting finish with tyre fails a plenty.
Lap 54 – Ocon in 5th is struggling on tyres and has a train of cars behind him. His team mate in third is going to find it hard to stay in front of Perez, but he sure deserves to.
Lap 55 – VIRTUAL SAFETY CAR – that will certainly help Alonso hang onto third spot and stuff Lewis Hamilton’s chances of stealing fastest lap from Max Verstappen. Max Verstappen pits for tyres for fun.
Lap 57 – Lewis Hamilton wins the first ever Qatar Grand Prix after the Virtual Safety Car ends part way around the final lap. Max Verstappen finishes second and improves his fastest lap. Fernando Alonso hangs on to finish third.
FINAL ORDER – HAM VER ALO PER OCO STR SAI LEC NOR VET
2021 Qatar 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
Right now it is Hamilton and Mercedes > Verstappen / Red Bull. Whether that is completely fair is up to the now feuding Team bosses. Will there be a protest coming? Anyways, the drivers Championship lead down to 8 points with two races to go. Mercedes are down to a five point lead in the Constructor’s Championship.
ON TRACK ACTION – 6 /10
There wasn’t too much action at the very front, there was a fair bit behind. Enough upper midfield offering to keep one awake on the other side of the world where the race start time wasn’t as social.
ENDING 3 / 10
Virtual Safety Car at least woke us up. Alonso hanging on for third was interesting enough. As were the possibility of ore bursting tyres.
OVERALL RATING 19 / 30
Good race to set up the Championship, and not the worst race of the year on a track which looked like it was going to be a Tilke No Pass Special.
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
2021 Qatar 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 – FERNANDO ALONSO
Some justification on his comeback making it onto the podium. He was quick in practice sessions, and quick in qualifying. Sure he was helped by the demotions of the faster cars to behind him on the grid, but he stayed in front of two of them. And takes a tiny bit of the shine away from a Lewis Hamilton win isn’t going to make him sad.
THE GREAT – LEWIS HAMILTON
Another dominant performance, and that Championship gap closes to eight points. Perhaps it was the manner of the victory that will make him the most happy. Verstappen didn’t get a look in today, and you could argue probably wouldn’t have without the grid penalty.
THE GREAT – MAX VERSTAPPEN
Talking of grid penalty, Max Verstappen did all he could after being demoted five grid places for yellow flag infringement during Q3 of Qualifying. He set fastest lap in second too, a point that could prove so valuable by season’s end.
HONOURABLE MENTIONS
ESTEBAN OCON- A solid fifth place behind his starring tea mate. Making the most of off days of Ferrari and McLaren.
LANCE STROLL – It’s easy to pick on Lance Stroll, but sometimes he is quite crap, but a solid showing and points here deserves a call out. So we will.
THE GRAPE-EST – VALTTERI BOTTAS
Another poor start, and in the excitement of watching the cars at the front from the start you quickly lost the backwards progress of Valtteri Bottas. Seemed to pick up a bit when given a rocket over the team radio, but still seemed sluggish. You only have to compare his race to the knife through butter efforts of his team mate last weekend. You could rule out sabotage on his team mate’s Championship bid, but it sure didn’t help Hamilton with this effort.
DIS-HONOURABLE MENTIONS
DANIEL RICCIARDO – Another invisible race after a below par qualifying and a bad start.
SERGIO PEREZ – Did well to recover to 4th in the end, but his going missing in key qualifying races is no doubt a worry for Red Bull, who seem to enjoy firing their second drivers.
2021 Qatar Grand Prix Result – Power Rankings
Stay tuned for our Power Rankings from the 2021 Qatar Grand Prix and the overall 2021 F1 Season Power Rankings leader/s.
Read our last edition from after the Brazilian Grand Prix here.
