Max Verstappen is Formula 1 World Champion

Today was the day of decision. After months of battles on the track, the two leading racers Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were exactly tied with 369.5 points. Whoever won the Formula 1 race in Abu Dhabi today would also automatically become Formula 1 world champion. The teams and the mood were correspondingly tense.

The starting position also promised to be exciting. On the one hand, Max Verstappen had managed to secure pole position, while on the other hand the Mercedes were expected to perform better on the track. In order to gain a speed advantage, Verstappen had the red = faster tires mounted, Lewis Hamilton started the race with the yellow tires, the middle ones. Now Verstappen simply had to try to drive away from the front. But the Dutchman missed the start and Lewis Hamilton went straight to the front. Verstappen wasn't about to let that happen to him, shooting past Hamilton in turn 6 and pushing Hamilton into the run-off zone, who took a shortcut across the run-off zone and ended up in front of Verstappen despite Verstappen's overtaking maneuver. Red Bull and Verstappen were furious and demanded that Hamilton let him pass, but race officials ruled in favor of Hamilton. His shortcut maneuver was not penalized because Verstappen would have pushed him off the track, they explained.

Now, with a gap of 1.6 seconds, Hamilton began to pull away more and more to 5 seconds. In view of this situation, the question was how long Verstappen could have kept the lead if the race stewards had ruled in his favor, and all this despite a supposed tire advantage. Above all, a tire problem befalls Verstappen relatively quickly, the rear tires degrade too quickly. He is therefore called into the pits, where he receives the white tires with which he can drive through to the end. To prevent Verstappen from gaining a real advantage from this tire change, Hamilton also switches to the white tires shortly afterwards.

In the meantime, there is already a gap of around 8 seconds between the leading Hamilton and Verstappen. Team-mate Sergio Perez is instructed to hold off Lewis Hamilton. The Mexican delivers the race drive of his life and effectively holds off Hamilton so that the latter's distance to Verstappen melts away to 1.5 seconds. The teammate has performed a real heroic deed here. But on lap 21, Hamilton is finally able to overtake Perez and immediately extends the gap to Verstappen again to 2.5 seconds and builds it up further to 5 seconds.

Due to a defect at Giovinazzi, the virtual safety car is called. Verstappen seizes the opportunity, goes into the pits and gets a new set of white tires (hard). Hamilton remains on the track. Verstappen makes up ground, but he chases a large gap of 16 seconds and reduces it to 11 seconds, but in purely mathematical terms this can no longer work out, because 52 of 58 laps have already been completed. Up to this point, everyone is convinced that Hamilton will win the world title again. How boring.

Due to a surprising crash by Latifi in turn 14, the safety car comes onto the track. Verstappen seizes the opportunity and picks up another set of red tires in the pits. But there are still lapped drivers between Hamilton and Verstappen. Once again, there is a heated radio exchange between Red Bull and race control and Mercedes. Before the safety car leaves the track, the lapped drivers have to pass the safety car to get to the end of the field of drivers. Red Bull pushes for this, Mercedes fights back, race control first holds the cars back and then lets them pass. Only through this maneuver does Max Verstappen get very close to Hamilton. The large gap has disappeared. After the safety car leaves the track, Hamilton restarts the race, he tries everything to create a gap between himself and Verstappen, but he doesn't really succeed. Now Verstappen is really on Hamilton's tail. Hamilton with old white tires, Verstappen with new red tires. Now it's time for the last lap, but you can see that Verstappen is now faster. In the hairpin he can finally overtake Hamilton and despite various attempts by Hamilton to counter him, Verstappen crosses the finish line first and is the new world champion. Nobody had really expected this outcome. The result was completely contrary to the course of the race. But everyone at Red Bull and the tens of thousands of Dutch fans who had traveled to Abu Dhabi especially for Max Verstappen rejoiced. Max Verstappen is the new Formula 1 world champion. He is also the first Dutch Formula 1 world champion.