2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres

13 comments on “2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix interactive data: lap charts, times and tyres”

1. 

   Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
   12th December 2021, 22:50

   Any confirmation on the reason for Perez’s retirement from a podium position?
   Shame for Tsunoda that his best finish of his career to date will be largely forgotten given everything else going on. He did well to keep Bottas behind for so long.
   1. 

      Michael
      12th December 2021, 23:02

      Verstappen and Red Bull are very lucky the reliability issue was with Perez’s car not his.

      Bottas’s old engine looked every bit as slow as Mercedes claimed when racing Leclerc and Norris. Interesting that he lost out to both Alpha Tauris on the last lap.

      Sainz can consider himself very unlucky not to have been given a chance to pick up the pieces from Hamilton and Verstappens scrap on the last lap.
      Would have been his one and only chance of a race win this season.
      Particularlyy as Hamilton would have backed Verstappen into him in normal circumstances. However Ferrari would have nothing to gain by appealing.
      1. 

         Esploratore (@esploratore1)
         13th December 2021, 1:47

         I believe sainz got plenty this season, leclerc deserved a win (silverstone, monaco, but that was his own fault in part ofc, and also an interesting attempt in turkey).
      2. 

         I luv chicken
         13th December 2021, 3:44

         Conspiracy theory that Perez was running underfueled, being sacrificed for his role as blocker. When told to park the car ( for water/oil issues ), he replied that the car felt fine. Secondly, if all was legal, why not run the car into the ground, since it was for podium, and also the last race of the year. My impression is that the team never planned to have him finish. You ‘d think that he’d be more upset by losing third place, instead of stone faced, during post race interviews.
         1. 

            someone or something
            13th December 2021, 8:58

            Like virtually all conspiracy theories, this one lacks brains. So, shame on you for peddling it.
            Pérez retired 3 laps from the end, so even if his tank were running dry at that stage, the fact that he completed 55 laps means that he could only have been underfuelled by a maximum of 6.5 kg, the equivalent of 0.1 seconds per lap or up to 6 seconds over a race distance.
            I hope I don’t need to spell out how little sense such a small-scale manipulation would make.

            Also, linking the retirement to concerns about legality is offensively stupid. If his car were really underfuelled, it would’ve stopped on the track, end of story. Nothing to be afraid of, no post-race scrutineering, nothing. Running out of fuel isn’t even illegal, you can just get thrown out ouf the results if you have too little fuel in the tank for a fuel sample. Seeing as you only need (about?) a kilo of fuel for that, there was either no risk of him seeing the chequered flag, or the amount of fuel he was supposedly (according to that rubbish theory) missing would again have to be so small as to be completely ineffective in terms of getting Pérez in Hamilton’s way.

            And lastly, Pérez’s impression that the car felt fine has absolutely nothing to do with a water or oil leak. That’s just how you’d expect the car to feel in such a situation. Everything seems fine until a threshold is reached where things start failing, and that’s when you grind to a halt. Experienced drivers can be sensitive to surprisingly many performance-relevant parameters, but this is simply not one of them.
            If anything, this is reminiscent of the prevention paradox: An authority (in this case the Red Bull pitwall) can see an issue coming and steps in to prevent it from taking full effect. As a result, those that don’t have the full picture can only see the intervention, but not the full extent of the issue that caused it.
            And that’s when the logically challenged chime in to claim that there was no issue, or that the issue was a different one than the authority says, and that the whole reason for the authority’s intervention was [conspiracy].

            Like I said, this is offensively stupid.
   2. 

      ttongsul (@ccpbioweapon)
      13th December 2021, 18:43

      Most likerly Perez was under fueled and running illegal an illegal car so he could do his role of swerving kamikaze blocks on Lewis as the car.
      He was forced to DNF so his car couldn’t be scrutinized post race.

      That’s my theory
      1. 

         someone or something
         13th December 2021, 21:41

         I’d like to quote the eloquently worded quintessence of my assessment of the very same conspiracy theory from above:

         this is offensively stupid.

         For more information, see above.
2. 

   OOliver
   12th December 2021, 23:03

   About time Masi’s fingers begin to show up on the lap chart.
3. 

   sumedh
   13th December 2021, 4:59

   I wonder why Mercedes didn’t pit Lewis on end of lap 37 (the lap after Max pitted). The VSC was active until Hamilton was on the pit straight and had already started lap 38 (His lap 38 time is 1:30.xx, indicates at least 3.5-4 seconds of loss compared to his pre-VSC times).

   Had he stopped, his pit stop wouldn’t have been as cheap as Verstappen’s – which was a full VSC stop – but a part-VSC, part-SC stop. Hamilton had a 5.7 second buffer which could have been sufficient to nullify this part-VSC, part-SC stop. He would have come out may be just ahead of Max. I felt it was a no-brainer to pit after Max pitted.

   One must not forget that the 3 strategy options that Red Bull implemented – 1) keeping Checo out, 2) stop under VSC, 3) stop under SC (the last of which was ultimately successful) – were available only because Bottas wasn’t in the picture and Perez was. Had Bottas been around, Max couldn’t have pitted for hards so early which meant losing more time to Hamilton. The safe VSC and SC stop could perhaps have not been there if Bottas would be behind Max. Also, the lap 20 loss of 5 seconds that Hamilton had due to Perez closed off the lap 36 / lap 37 VSC pit window for Lewis.

   The team-mates made a huge huge difference today. Max owes this race to Checo.
   1. 

      Red Andy (@red-andy)
      13th December 2021, 7:11

      I agree about the teammate factor – Bottas was nowhere and it cost Mercedes strategically.

      I don’t think Mercedes had a safe gap to pit under VSC, and given their general persecution complex (as demonstrated by their shameful tantrum about the race end) they probably thought the VSC would be withdrawn as soon as Hamilton crossed the pit entry line, if they’d pitted him.
      1. 

         Mosin
         13th December 2021, 13:31

         or because LH had enough tyres to finish the race and didnt need to pit so didnt need to give up his advantage, seeing how when the SC came out at the end he was 12 secs ahead with max to still pass 3 back markers it was very unlikely max would have got a sniff, unless he was going to pull out some soft quali laps on tyres he was aleady struggling on?

         Its only because of the rules made on the last two laps of a race during a safety which meant those who had back markers in the way couldnt push to place better, unless your name was MV. That was also the only reason he even got with in a sniff of LH
   2. 

      Dirk
      16th December 2021, 0:19

      I also wonder if Hamilton could have pitted on lap 53 and possibly retained track position. He had a 12s lead, which we all know wasn’t enough normal racing conditions. But with the field slowing down because of the safety car, everyone on track had to slow down as well, somewhat negating the disadvantage of the pitlane speed limit.
4. 

   Ken Dolman
   14th December 2021, 15:43

   It is my belief that Perez was retired to get him out of the picture. After Latifi crashed and Max pitted for softs, the race order was HAM, PER, SAI, BOT, TSU, GAS, NOR, VER, etc.
   Red Bull were pressuring Masi to get a racing lap in before the finish and any cars between HAM and VER were a potential delay, even if unlapping was allowed.
   As it was, Masi reversed his edict that lapped cars could not unlap but only those between HAM and VER (odd). As a consequence that meant that VET, ALO and OCO were prevented from contesting the lower order points on the last lap as they now finished on their lap 57 when the chequered flag came out.
   It was a strange decision by Masi and a contraventiion of the rules governing tbe end of a Safety Car period.

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