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Whenever we talk about Lewis Hamilton and the F1 Brazilian GP, the first race that comes to mind is the 2021 edition. The Mercedes driver was in an intense title fight and was disqualified after the Friday qualifying of the sprint weekend. The fact that he came back through the field and was leading the field by the time the chequered flag fell on Sunday sounds almost impossible.
Yet, Hamilton made that happen. In the years gone by, that race has been considered by many as one of the greatest drives. Is it true though?
Is Lewis Hamilton's win at the 2021 F1 Brazilian GP, one of the best drives of all time? There's reason to think that this performance might just be overrated.
Lewis Hamilton won the race from P10
The myth around the performance is that Lewis Hamilton was right at the back of the grid as he was disqualified after qualifying. Well, that's not true. Hamilton was disqualified after qualifying on Friday but since it was a sprint weekend, the grid for the race on Sunday was decided after the sprint on Saturday.
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In the sprint on Saturday, Hamilton made his way through the field to finish P5. Since he also had a 5-place grid penalty for the main race, his sprint race sealed a P10 starting position for Sunday.
While, yes, making your way through the field is very impressive and so is winning the race, doing so from a P10 starting position compared to the back of the grid is certainly much easier.
He was P2 in less than 20 laps
Lest we forget, such was the advantage the car enjoyed over the rest of the field that Lewis Hamilton was already up to P2 by lap 20 when he overtook Sergio Perez. The gap ahead to Max Verstappen was around 4 seconds when he made that pass, making the race a straight shootout with his championship rival.
Something that is often forgotten about that race is the competitive state of F1 at the time. At the front, we had Mercedes and Red Bull battling it out for race wins and podiums every race but behind them, there was a huge gulf in performance.
Neither McLaren nor Ferrari were anywhere close to the top 2 and hence what we had was a scenario where a bad qualifying position did not hurt as much as it does right now.
It took Lewis Hamilton only 20 laps to be right in contention for the win with Max Verstappen and only 4 seconds behind the Dutchman, and he did all of it after starting the race in P10. While it does show impressive racecraft and performance, it also shows how big an advantage Mercedes had over the field.
The massive pace advantage over Red Bull cannot be ignored
Context is also important when it comes to races like these. In Brazil, Mercedes unleashed a brand new PU for Lewis Hamilton, and it was more than obvious that the extra grunt helped the car. During qualifying, Hamilton's lap times in Q1, Q2, and Q3 were all close to half a second faster than what Max Verstappen was able to put in.
This kind of advantage around a lap that's only 69 seconds long is massive, and if we put into context that Hamilton was 4 seconds behind Verstappen and had 51 laps to overtake him in a car that was roughly half a second quicker, then this does not look as impressive.
So, what made it special?
Well, a couple of things made the F1 Brazilian GP special. The first was the fact that Lewis Hamilton entered the weekend in a situation where he had to win to keep the championship battle competitive. Max Verstappen had strung together multiple wins late in the season and left the Mercedes driver in a position where he was on the back foot for the most part.
To add to this, Max Verstappen made it very hard for Hamilton to make a clean pass and get ahead. The pace advantage was evident, and this was evident as soon as Hamilton jumped Perez. But Verstappen's defensive tactics and the fact that he got away with going off track, taking Hamilton with him, made it an even more desperate battle.
Verstappen made it clear that it was not going to be a straightforward race for Hamilton, and he was going to use every trick in the book. The fact that Hamilton got past Verstappen after all of the latter's moves made the whole thing appear even more spectacular.
So...is it overrated?
It depends. How does one rate this performance? If you consider it a drive delivered in crunch time with a championship at stake, then yes, it is that. However, if you're going to consider this performance as one of the best drivers ever in the history of the sport, you're probably incorrect. Winning a race from P10 in a car that is roughly three- to five-tenths faster than the second-best car on the grid just does not qualify for that level of appraisal.
