2021 - Race 22 Abu Dhabi

[Nitrodaze]

None of the data said that RBR had a chance for pole and if Mercedes was leading after lap 1, RBR had no chance of overtaking. Some excellent strategery by Red Bull to bring some spiciness back.

1. The play to go to soft tires and not to give it away until it was too late for Mercedes.

2. The SergioTOW. Excellent teamwork.

The question now will Hamilton pit Verstappen at the first corner and hope the stewards look the other way because it is "lap 1".

I doubt Hamilton would intentionally swipe Verstappen into the gravel or wall. If it goes wrong he would be handing the title to Verstappen. Seeing how he has driven since Silverstone, he would want to do it cleanly on track. Besides both of them would be watched very closely by the stewards in this race. Any dodgy acts would definitely be met with very stern consequences.

The Sergio Tow did not account for the full advantage that Verstappen produced. I think the car was set up for qualifying and good straight-line speed. How well it would fare in the long stints is yet to be seen. It all comes down to how intelligently Verstappen uses that pace to create a buffer for him to nullify the unavoidable two-stop strategy that Redbull has been boxed into.

With the potential consequential tyre wear of the quali-setup, he would need to find a way to conserve tyre to defend at the closing stages of the race.

It is going to be a fascinating race. Of course, Perez is going to play an important part at some stage. I think Bottas is also going to recover from 6th, hence we may have a battle of the number two drivers at some point of the race.

At some point, both Redbull's are going end up behind their counterparts after their first pitstop. Hence, we would have the situation of a rapid Verstappen catching and trying to pass Hamilton which would be an explosive situation. The same may happen between Perez and Bottas.