The final lap in ABU DHABI did more than decide a championship. It snapped a long‑running narrative of inevitability around Lewis Hamilton and opened a new chapter built around Max Verstappen’s relentlessness, the sport’s rulebook, and the way Formula 1 sells jeopardy. In the seasons since, that single pass has come to feel less like a twist ending and more like the prologue to a different competitive era.

I see that moment now as a hinge: the instant when a decade of Mercedes control gave way to a landscape shaped by Verstappen’s aggression, regulatory controversy, and a recalibrated sense of what dominance looks like. To understand how the era shifted, it is worth tracing not only the overtake itself but the decisions that framed it, the scars it left on Hamilton’s camp, and the scale of Verstappen’s supremacy that followed.

The last lap that rewrote the script

On that night in ABU DHABI, Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton arrived level on points, yet the race itself initially looked like a familiar Mercedes procession. Hamilton controlled the pace, managed the tyres, and appeared to have the title in hand until a late safety car compressed everything into a single sprint. In that compressed window, Verstappen seized the only opening he had, attacking on fresher tyres and snatching the world championship from his title rival on the final lap of the season, a move that turned what had seemed like a routine coronation into a shock victory and the world title.

That pass did not just decide a race, it punctured the aura that Hamilton’s late‑career comebacks had built. For years, rivals had watched him convert pressure into performance, particularly in the closing stages of grands prix. In ABU DHABI, the decisive move came from the other car. Max Verstappen committed to the inside line, trusted his grip, and made the kind of decisive lunge that defines champions, turning a season‑long duel with Lewis Hamilton into a single, unforgettable overtake that instantly entered Formula 1 folklore.

A viral lap and a permanent flashpoint

In the seasons since, that final tour of the Yas Marina Circuit has been replayed so often that it has become its own piece of media currency. Clips of Max and Lewis duelling through the opening corners of that last lap circulate constantly, with edits that slow the onboard footage, isolate the radio messages, and frame the moment as the instant the sport’s balance of power shifted. One widely shared reel describes how the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix did not just close an era of dominance, it “created a new one,” a sentiment that captures how the last‑lap fight between Max and Lewis has become shorthand for a generational handover.

That same lap is also the focal point of ongoing arguments about how the race was managed. Under the safety car, the gap between Hamilton and the chasing pack, including the Red Bull behind, was reshaped by decisions on lapped traffic and restart timing. One breakdown of the incident highlights how the distance between Hamilton and the car behind under the safety car compared with the gap after the restart, then tracks the fallout through the immediate protests and the moment when Hamilton ultimately congratulates Max and, as the commentary puts it, “that’s all.” The way that sequence unfolded, from the compressed gap to the restart that set up the pass, is now inseparable from the wider debate over Abu Dhabi F1 drama.

Controversy, Michael Masi, and a rulebook under strain

The controversy that followed was not simply about who overtook whom, it was about how the conditions for that overtake were created. Under standard procedure, all lapped cars are either left in place or allowed to unlap themselves before a restart. In this case, race director Michael Masi chose a different path, opting to allow only the lapped cars between Hamilton and Verstappen to move aside, then restarting the race immediately. That decision, which effectively cleared Verstappen’s path to attack Hamilton on the final lap, has been dissected ever since as a moment when the interpretation of the rules directly shaped the championship outcome, with Michael Masi at the center of the storm.

For Hamilton and his team, that call has remained an open wound. The sense that the title slipped away not through pace or strategy alone but through an unprecedented application of the safety‑car rules has shaped how they talk about that night and about the sport’s governance more broadly. When I look back at that sequence, I see a turning point in how Formula 1 balances entertainment with sporting integrity, a moment when the desire to end under green flag conditions collided with the expectations of a rulebook that teams believed would be applied consistently to Hamilton and Verstappen alike.

From first title shock to sustained Verstappen supremacy

Once the dust settled, the record books showed a simple fact: Verstappen was Formula 1 world champion. His first title came at the end of a season that stretched across 22 races, a campaign in which he and Hamilton traded wins, collisions, and psychological blows until that last‑lap pass finally broke the deadlock. The move that sealed it was described as both dramatic and controversial, a final‑corner‑style attack executed on a full lap, with the television broadcast scrambling to bleep the expletives that poured out on the radio as Verstappen realized he had taken the crown from Hamilton after 22 races.

Four years on, that breakthrough is remembered as the day a new order took hold. One retrospective notes that, four years ago, Max Verstappen claimed his first Formula 1 World Championship, ending a season‑long title battle with Lewis Hamilton at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and etching his name onto the list of champions. That same reflection frames the moment as a “momentous day in F1,” a description that feels even more accurate now that Verstappen’s subsequent run of success has turned that first crown into the foundation of a dynasty, with Max Verstappen’s World Championship in ABU DHABI seen as the hinge point.

How Max Verstappen reshaped the dominance debate

What followed that initial title was not a fragile reign but an escalation. In the ground‑effect era that began with new technical regulations, Verstappen and Red Bull built a level of control that has invited comparison with the greatest spells in Formula 1 history. Analyses of his record in this period describe how Max Verstappen’s ground effect dominance stacks up against other historic runs, noting that his most recent victory has already guaranteed his place high on lists that rank sustained success. The numbers attached to this era, from win percentages to streaks, show how How Max Verstappen has turned that first, contentious title into a platform for relentless accumulation.

In that context, the final lap in ABU DHABI looks less like a one‑off twist and more like the moment the sport’s competitive center of gravity shifted. Before that night, Hamilton’s era was defined by a blend of speed, consistency, and institutional stability at Mercedes. After it, Verstappen’s era has been marked by aggressive racecraft, a car that thrives under the current regulations, and a psychological edge built on the knowledge that he has already prevailed in the most pressurized circumstances imaginable. The debate over whether his dominance is “good” for the spectacle will continue, but the scale of it is inseparable from the way he first took the crown from Lewis Hamilton.

A legacy still contested, and an era still unfolding

Even now, the legacy of that final lap is contested in a way few sporting moments are. For Hamilton supporters, it is the night a record‑breaking champion was denied an eighth title by procedural improvisation. For Verstappen’s camp, it is the ultimate proof of seizing opportunity, the embodiment of a driver who never stops attacking, even when the odds appear stacked. The fact that Toto Wolff and Hamilton have spoken about thinking every day about that controversial defeat underlines how deeply the moment cut, while Verstappen’s camp points to the same lap as the crucible that forged his champion’s mentality, a clash between Hamilton and Verstappen that still shapes how both are perceived.

From my vantage point, that is precisely why the lap matters so much to the era that followed. It compressed questions of fairness, bravery, and risk into a single piece of footage that continues to loop across social media and in the minds of those who lived it. As Max Verstappen’s dominance has grown, the sport has been forced to reckon with how that dominance began, how the rules are written and enforced, and how much jeopardy fans expect when a title is on the line. The last lap in ABU DHABI did not just decide a championship, it reset the terms of Formula 1’s modern conversation, and the era it ushered in is still being defined every time Verstappen and Hamilton share a track.