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Max Verstappen's father Jos Verstappen stated that one needs to accept and move on from the 2021 F1 Abu Dhabi GP incident. The 2021 F1 season was a closely contested battle for the title that featured Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton. The battle came down to the last lap of the last race of the season, with both drivers tied on the same points.
With just a handful of laps left, Lewis Hamilton led the race from Max Verstappen and had a comfortable lead. It was almost elementary that the season would end with Lewis winning his 8th world title and Verstappen falling short. However, the Williams of Nicholas Latifi crashed out late in the race, bringing out the safety car.
At that point, Max Verstappen would jump into the pits to change for fresh tires while Lewis Hamilton would stay out on the assumption that the race would end under the safety car. As it turned out, the race director Michael Masi opted to restart the race on the very last lap allowing only 4 cars to unlap themselves. That left the Mercedes driver vulnerable against the Red Bull driver with just one lap left.
Max Verstappen, on fresh tires, would get the jump on Lewis Hamilton and become the 2021 F1 world champion. Looking back at what happened two years ago, Verstappen's father Jos Verstappen felt that it was something that one has to accept and move on. When asked if he had a heart attack while watching the race, he told PlanetF1:
“I sort of had! At the end of the day, I can imagine how Mercedes has felt, but it has nothing to do… we didn’t make those decisions. For the fans of Formula 1 and, of course, speaking as Max’s Dad, it couldn’t been better. It was so exciting until the last moment. Of course, for us, the outcome was nice. I can imagine, for Lewis and Toto, it’s not as nice. But that’s how it is, you know, you have to accept it.”
Jos Verstappen on the difference between Max Verstappen then and now
Talking about Max Verstappen then and now, there does seem to be a major difference. The driver now is more assured and has achieved a lot more success in the last couple of years. When questioned if there has been a difference between the Red Bull driver then and now, Jos Verstappen felt that it comes down to the car under him.
The Red Bull in 2021 was arguably slower at the end of the season than Mercedes but that's not the case now. He said:
“It’s not so much that he is more confident. I think, now, we have a more competitive car. That makes a difference. In 2021, I think in the last couple of races Mercedes was above us. We were still competing with a slower car against a faster one. Now, I think we have the edge over everybody else. That’s the difference.”
The 'AD2021' scandal will always cause a lot of controversy and the blatant manner in which the debacle happened is surely going to take a long time for any team or driver to move on from.
