Hamilton beat Verstappen in Saudi Arabia and will define Formula 1 in Abu Dhabi

The war between the heptachampion of the world and the Dutchman lived this Sunday one of its hottest chapters in Yeddah, where overtaking and touches were exchanged in an atmosphere of high tension on the track and garages, where Red Bull and the FIA came to negotiate in a surprising way a sanction to Verstappen.La questionable attitude of ‘Mad Max’, first braking against the Englishman when he tried to overtake him and then by letting him pass – forced by the FIA – in a way in which he has overtaken him again in the braking, he made fear the worst on the Saudi track. Finally, Hamilton took the lead with six laps to go to claim his eighth win of the season, which leaves a surprising picture for the last round of the championship next week in Abu Dhabi: the two title contenders will arrive tied at 369.5 points. On the winding path of Yeddah, the clean exit did not make us intuit the tsunami of events that was coming. Everything was precipitated first with an accident of the German Mick Schumacher (Haas) that caused the first yellow flag, with Hamilton entering the pits and Verstappen playing it not to stop. A red flag, to remove Schumacher’s car, allied with the Dutchman, who was able to change tires without losing positions and unleashed the anger of the Briton. It was nothing more than the prelude to the struggle that would star many laps later. There would be a standing start, with Verstappen starting ahead of his rival in the World Cup. In it, the heptachampion of the world managed to overcome the leader, who made a questionable maneuver skipping a corner to win the position again and facilitate that he was also surpassed by the Frenchman Esteban Ocon (Alpine). A brutal accident between Mazepin, Russell and Sergio Perez again waved the red flag. The cars returned to the pits, and, in an unprecedented negotiation, the FIA offered Red Bull that Verstappen come third, behind Ocon and Hamilton, to avoid the incident having to be judged by the stewards, amid the general bewilderment. The team of the energy brand accepted the offer and the Dutchman took the lead in the relaunch of lap 17; Hamilton managed to overtake Ocon on the straight to start a historic chase. The collisions of Tsunoda against the wall and of Vettel and Raikkonen with each other made the ‘virtual safety car’ act, which still had to act twice more to remove debris from the track. With the green flag, on lap 37, Hamilton went for Verstappen, who skipped Turn 1 to avoid being overtaken. “This guy is crazy,” Hamilton exclaimed. The Dutchman was supposed to let himself pass, but he braked when his opponent was about to do so and caused him to crash into the back of his car and break his spoiler. The FIA imposed a five-second penalty. The embarrassing spectacle continued when Hamilton, who resisted despite the damage, finally won the position, as required by the Race Direction, but Verstappen barely gave him a few meters to overtake him again. It was on lap 44 -of 50- when the current champion managed to put himself definitively leader of the race. In this way, he took the victory ahead of the Dutchman, who left the podium ceremony in an unsportsmanlike way, and the Finnish Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes), who surpassed in the final meters the Frenchman Esteban Ocon (Alpine) of the third place.

Original source in Spanish