F1 SEASON 2021
The Most Intense Season in Decades
The Story So Far
The 2021 FIA Formula One World Competition was a motor racing championship for Formula One cars that took place for the 72nd time.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing-Honda won the Drivers' Championship for the first time in his career at the season's
finish in Abu Dhabi.
Verstappen became the first Dutch driver to win the World Championship, the first Honda-powered driver since Ayrton Senna in 1991,
the first Red Bull driver since Sebastian Vettel in 2013 , and the first non-Mercedes driver in the turbo-hybrid era.
The map visualization below shows the race locations and their venues. A single race is held at each location which provides points to the top 10
drivers.
The places that Max Verstappen (Red Bull) dominated are indicated in blue and the places where Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) won are indicated
in black color.The Hungary Grand Prix held at Hungaroring circuit was won by Esteban Ocon and the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza held in Italy was won by Daniel Ricciardo of McLaren.
G.O.A.T v UNDERDOG
"It was the championship tussle the Formula 1 world had long been waiting for and it certainly did not dissapoint."
Due to the intense competition between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, the 2021 F1 season will go down in the history books as
one of the most significant and nail biting seasons. These two drivers' point difference has maintained a relatively narrow separation
from the start of the season, leaving no room for mistake. Tragically, despite several disputes that developed during the campaign, the F1
title was decided on the very last lap of the last circuit.
"For users new to formula 1 take a look at the below race calendar to see the order of the races throughout the season"
How Intense was the Competition ?
The below visualization shows how tight the competition was between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen
throughout the entirety of the season with both of them having equalt points just before the last race.
What happened in Abu Dhabi?
Verstappen and Hamilton were equal on points heading
into the last race of the 2021 season, which was a winner-take-all affair.
In the final circuits, Hamilton maintained his advantage, with Verstappen in
second position.
Nicholas Latifi of Williams crashed at turn 14 to bring out the safety car.
Verstappen reacted by pitting for new soft tyres, but Hamilton continued on his
old hard tyres.
As the laps ticked down, the stewards originally planned to have no lapped cars pass
the safety car, unlike the normal procedure. Red Bull team boss Christian Horner asked
why lapped cars weren’t allowed to pass.
On the penultimate lap, race director Michael Masi
decided to allow lapped cars through, but even more controversially, only the five cars
between Hamilton and Verstappen. Immediately after Sebastian Vettel passed the safety car, the
stewards announced the safety car would come in to allow one final lap of racing. On the last lap
of the race and the season,Verstappen used his new tyres to his advantage and passed Hamilton
at turn 5.
Is the controversy fair ?
The below visualization show's Verstappen's gap to Hamilton and provides the whole story of the biggest two rivals in 2021 Season!
In the first 4 races Verstappen was behind Hamilton. After Monaco, Verstappen has taken the
the championship lead (he experienced that for the first time in his career) and even
extended the gap by up to 32 points after Austria GP!
It is quite clear that after the 4th race Verstappen was in favour of the title irrespective of controversy.
2021 Season in Summary
Is there a relationship between the grid position, Final Position and the Fastest Lap ?
One of the most evident factors in the 2021 season was that the grid Position was highly correlated with the final Position and the fastest Lap, this meant that
the drivers who managed to obtain a better starting position (Grid Position) were able to end up at a better Final Position and set the record for the fastest Lap
Top 10 Drivers
The Top 10 Drivers of the 2021 Season were Verstappen , Hamilton,Bottas , Perez, Sainz, Norris , Leclerc , Ricciardo , Gasly and Alonso. We can see that
Hamilton and Verstappen were in a league of their own with other drivers not even coming close to their level and not managing ot surpass 300 points .
Use the filter to see the statistics for individual drivers and compare them with Verstappen
Top 5 Constructors
The Top 5 Constructors of the 2021 Season were Mercedes, Redbull, Ferrari, McLaren and Alpine F1 Team . Mercedes won the constructors thus making this season
the first season since 2008 where the champion driver was not from the team that took the constructor's title.
Use the filter to see the individual performance of constructors at each Grand Prix.
What decides a World Championship ?
"It is often known that to be better at something you need to keep doing it frequently and as often as you
can."
This is true for the sport of Formula 1. By analyzing the data visualization below it can be seen that
Mercedes and Redbull had the drivers with the most amount of combined experience among
themselves thereby far outweighing other constructors in terms of experience.
Hence it is no wonder why these two constructors
were the favorites for the world championship , going into the 2021 season. Hamilton and Bottas had a total combined experience of 466 Grand Prix Races
among them where as Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez had a total combined experience of 355 Grand Prix races.
This visualization was created by Manuja Herath Kirinde as an assigment for FIT3179