OPINION: An F1 battle for the ages

21 races down, one to go, and the 2021 Formula 1 season is going to go lanugo to the wire.

Let that sink in for a minute. No, not the fact that it is going lanugo to the wire, but the fact it is doing so without increasingly races than any other season in Formula 1 history.

Scrolling through scuttlebutt sections and social media replies paints a very divided picture when it comes to supporting one suburbanite or the other. In the States it looks a little increasingly balanced, but in unstipulated it seems to be you’re either vociferously for Lewis Hamilton and despise Max Verstappen, or the other way round. There’s no middle ground.

So plane if the suburbanite wars have once long-since kicked off pursuit the events in Jeddah, let’s just take a moment to fathom what both have washed-up surpassing one is crowned champion and the other has to make do with an epic runner-up spot, considering they have both been faced with perhaps the most well-constructed test the sport has overly served up.

Even if we ignore the restrictions placed on the teams and drivers due to COVID-19, the sporting rencontre has been massive. Just three days of pre-season testing meant very little track time for all of the drivers surpassing the first race, getting to grips with cars that would unmistakably handle differently to their predecessors pursuit changes to the floor.

But from the word go, Hamilton and Verstappen were on it. They went wheel-to-wheel in Bahrain, and then in Imola, then in Portimao… oh, and then in Barcelona. It was thrilling stuff.

Monaco was when on the calendar, and was the first race where either of them really stumbled at as Hamilton ended up seventh. But it was when to drama in Baku with Verstappen’s tire failure and Hamilton’s subsequent restriction bias error that resulted in potential wins slipping yonder for both.

A double header in Austria was the first oddity compared to a “normal” season, but that was planned in response to COVID. What was just a completely new rencontre for everyone to squatter was the introduction of the Sprint, which asked drivers to requite it everything on a qualifying lap without just one hour of practice.

The first two came at Silverstone and Monza, and Hamilton and Verstappen collided at both. With a new venue at Zandvoort in between thrown in for good measure, the European summer was once a spell of upper tension, and we still had the Americas swing and Middle East finish to come.

There had once been two triple headers, but the final one that took in Mexico, Brazil and Qatar created immense drama, as the season started towers to one hell of a crescendo.

If you’re anything like me, the vaticination you’re feeling for Abu Dhabi is enormous. But I’m struggling to imagine what could happen next that could top what has gone surpassing in terms of controversy and suspense. Maybe it was the mental stress of the previous triple header, or of the the slightly upturned scenes in Jeddah simply to put a race on, but it felt like the lid scrutinizingly came off on Sunday.

Qatar was a new rencontre but increasingly of a known quantity in terms of stuff an existing track, whereas Saudi Arabia was a well-constructed step into the unknown as we showed up to find an facility that was still far from finished, plane if the track itself was just well-nigh ready to go.

And despite all of those curveballs, all of the power unit penalties, controversial run-ins, investigations and penalties, the two protgonists have not given each other an inch.

369.5 points apiece. Plane a decimal point for good measure thanks to a race that wasn’t a race at Spa. Wet races. wet/dry races, dry/wet races (sorry, Lando), grid restarts with two laps to go, and the past seven races have seen them finish first and second in one order or the other on no fewer than six occasions.

The past five rounds have all been led home by this pair, with Hamilton’s maximum points haul in Saudi the first time he has managed to take the full 26 on offer all season. It’s a sign of just how sensationally both have been performing that when one wins, the other is unchangingly right there to limit their proceeds in the runner-up spot. What’s increasingly remarkable is it has come tween so much whoopee on the track and tension off it.

For Verstappen, it comes as he chases a first world title that would represent the end of the era of Mercedes dominance. It’s once over, given what Red Bull has produced this year, but the record books could show flipside subsequent Merc title and protract the run of success. The team has been longing to be in a championship fight once again, and Honda has thrown everything at it for its last endangerment of success surpassing leaving the sport, too.

Whether he’s let it get to him a little is up for debate. With a squeaky-clean license without Zandvoort, he has picked up seven penalty points since Monza and on Saturday hit the wall when set for pole position. But his tideway hasn’t changed, and he was sublime in Austin and Mexico surpassing still fighting for everything and ending up second in the last three.

In Hamilton’s case, a record-breaking eighth championship awaits, and it’s tough to describe Verstappen as anything but his most difficult opponent yet. Not only for the way he races, or the supreme talent that makes the Dutchman squint destined for greatness, but the full might of Red Bull is overdue him and drastic to get finally end Mercedes’ run.

Inevitably, the pair are going to be specified as a winner and a loser come Sunday night, but in reality this was a season with two winners. Don’t let any comments section kid you, we’ve seen two of the very weightier requite it veritably everything they’ve got – both within the rules, and outside them at times – in response to the rencontre the other has put up.

You’ll be hard-pushed to find a increasingly deserving champion in history than the one we get this year, whoever it is, based on the challenges this season has provided, and increasingly importantly the quotient of opponent they’ll have beaten.