“Lewis Hamilton didn’t expect me to overtake him there,” Max Verstappen gives his thoughts on the final lap of Abu Dhabi GP

“Lewis Hamilton didn’t expect me to overtake him there,” Max Verstappen gives his thoughts on the final lap of Abu Dhabi GP

Reigning World Champion Max Verstappen

The 2021 Formula One season was truly one for the history books with last minute winners to history being created. The season that saw two rivals go to head-to-head with each other throughout its course ended in the last Grand Prix of the season, the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix where 24-year-old Max Verstappen clinched his first maiden championship title while denying Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton a record eighth world championship title.

What gave him the incentive to take on Hamilton in the last lap, who had been leading the race for its entirety until the last lap was Williams’ Nicholas Latifi’s crash and the decisions taken by former FIA race director Michael Masi following it. Hamilton’s efforts in the last lap were in complete vain as Verstappen who was on fresher tyres then gained on the lost time and went on to win the race and the championship.

Max Verstappen in a conversation for his own documentary said, “He [Hamilton] didn’t expect me to overtake him there. We had less downforce that weekend so we had more top speed, so I wanted to be up front because without DRS I can defend. Even if he had come alongside me he could never overtake me because of the top-speed advantage. With the grip I had, I went for that corner and defended those other corners.”

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I was hoping for a restart: Max Verstappen

The last lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
The last lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

Max Verstappen asserts the Red Bull pit crew was “very nervous” going into the final lap since the team radio had gone “very quiet.” Even if his condition appeared bleak before Latifi’s collision, Verstappen insists he never gave up the fight.

”I knew I wouldn’t close an 11-second gap in five laps. But I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to give up now and drive slowly to the finish line. I’m going to give it my all to make it not look easy’. I wasn’t really happy at that moment,” adds the Dutchman.

Following Latifi’s accident, as Verstappen passed the wreckage of the Williams that had hit a wall, he saw an opportunity, even though it did not materialize as he had hoped for at the time. “I was hoping for a restart. That car was at a tricky angle to get out of there,” said Verstappen in reference to the crash. What followed after the crash was the safety car remaining on the track and Masi instructing the cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to unlap themselves which gave Verstappen the much-needed boost to attack Hamilton in the last lap.

Also Read: Lewis Hamilton reveals about contemplating retirement after 2021 title loss to Max Verstappen