The 2021 Formula 1 season is just around the corner. 23 races are scheduled for 2021 and it will be the longest season in the history of F1. It is a season where teams are going in with most of the 2020 car and with budget caps its going to be a huge challenge. Since the teams were given just 2 tokens to develop the 2021 car it is expected to be a close battle between them
With just 3 days of pre season testing and the insight from the Netflix series Drive to Survive here’s what I expect the 2021 season to pan out.
Mercedes
The dominators would be a correct word to describe the team with 7 consecutive double world titles under their belt, this is the team to beat in 2021. They come with a very strong pair of drivers of which one driver is a 7 time would champion and a Finn who is very hungry for his 1st title. The team is always aiming for perfection and it is shown how they always focus on themselves and always push the limits on innovation.
Sir Lewis Hamilton is the driver everyone wants to beat with his team mate Bottas being the 1st in line. Things are heating up between the duo as Valtteri Bottas has started playing various mind games with Hamilton to a level of attacking Hamilton’s personal life choices. This creates a very toxic environment within the team and gives out the same vibe as 2016 in the Mercedes garage. With every driver on the grid trying out for a seat in the Mercs it puts pressure mostly on Bottas as he has to stay at his A game week in and week out. Hamilton has created a name for himself that to get a contract extension it would just be a sit-down talk with Toto Wolff.
Talking about the 2021 car, Testing didn’t go well for Mercedes or for the teams that had Mercedes engines fitted, with various breakdowns. Mainly it was the gearbox which was overheating, this could be because the team has such a compact package that there isn’t enough cooling over the vital parts. While this happenned, I’m pretty sure Mercedes will be quick on there feet and resolve the issue in the couple of weeks before the 1st race. As to how fast it is, we can never know, testing has never been a place where we should benchmark a team’s performance as there might be sandbagging or low weight running to test systems. We’ll see how good the car is on Saturday with Qualifying for the 1st race of the season.
RedBull
The team who does things rather different to the others and are at the top. The team that dominated the first few years last decade is always hungry for domination. The only team that was an actually challenge for Mercedes in some races. The team ended last year on a high with a pole and win on the track Mercedes were dominant since 2014. Cristian Horner said it was a statement that they are now on par with the Mercedes.
Max Verstappen is the hot driver for Redbull as he is challenging Mercedes. Alex Albon who had a bad season was dropped by RedBull for another talent Sergio Perez, who lost his contract for a team he was very loyal to. Perez has shown incredible performance and last year was his best season. He got his 1st win after being the last on lap 1 of the Shakir GP. And if not for reliability problems he would have been finishing in the top 5 for the last few races of 2020. Overall, the team has a good driver line up for 2021 and is very confident on being on top this season.
The 2021 car of the team seams to be working well. RedBull always ran a short high rake car and with the regulation changes they seam to favour the car. The team managed to be the fastest car in testing but as testing is never a good benchmark, we will have to see what it can do on a proper race weekend. Nontheless the car seams to be working well and we might be looking for an interesting championship fight this season.
McLaren.
The legendary team who was having a hard time from 2014 is now getting back to the top with 3 podiums last year and showing some excellent performance. They have a new power unit this year with them deciding to get the most powerful engine on the grid from Mercedes while dropping the Renault engine they had been using for a while. Lando Norris will be pairing up with former RedBull and Renault driver Daniel Riccardo. McLaren finished P3 in last seasons championship and would be battling to keep the place this year as well.
Lando Norris even though he is young is now the most senior driver teamwise starting his 3rd year with the team and his career. The young brit started last year with a great 1st podium and is expecting to have more under his belt this season. The smiling Australian is also hungry for wins and a championship and expect to achieve this goal with McLaren over the coming years. Riccardo is a race winner so he expects to bring his knowledge from his achievements to grow the team fighting for race wins.
As for the 2021 contender, McLaren is doing well looking at testing, the car seams fast and without any reliability issues. They had to change the car a lot to get the Mercedes powertrain installed but it hasn’t affected performance much. There seams to be no engine reliability issues faced by this team unlike the other Mercedes Power unit users. This might be for them having a slightly wider engine cavity than the others. Overall, they are in a good place this season and looking to be top of the mid field this season as well.
Aston Martin
The British Ferrari, James Bond Cars are several names for the iconic brand that’s coming back into F1 again. Aston Martin has been around the paddock for a while as a title sponsor for RedBull Racing but now with Lawrence Stroll saving the company from bankruptcy, he now joined forces with the brand and his F1 team Racing Point. The iconic pink livery on the grid has gone and the iconic British Racing green is on the Grid for 2021. Racing point got a lot of hate last year for being called the Pink Mercedes as their 2020 car was very similar to 2019’s Title winning Mercedes. Yet with a fine and a 15-point deduction they were 4th in the championship. If the had the 15 points they would’ve been the 3rd.
Lawrence Stroll owning the team means his son Lance will be on the grid for quite sometime. That being said Lance is also showing strong performance with a Pole position in the greasy wet Turkish GP and leading a good amount of laps until a bad strategy call. The team has a well experienced 4-time world champion Sebastian Vettel handling the car for them as well. Sebastian has experience from his championship years in RedBull and has a good knowledge on how Ferrari gets work done, so I’m sure that Vettel being on the team will make Aston Martin a great boost in the fight for that 3rd spot in the championship.
According to Aston Martin they have used the 2020 driver cell but the rest is relatively new. We don’t know how good the car is since they were hit with a lot of reliability issues mainly on the gearbox side of things. Like Mercedes they run a very compact rear end which has an effect in cooling and as a result PU components tend to overheat and fail. They didn’t get the track time they need with Vettel getting the lowest overall laps in the car. Hopefully they have resolved the issues and we will see where the green car is on Saturday.
Alpine
Renault in 2020, Alpine in 2021. The team rebranded for this season as well as made a lot of changes in the top-level management. The team principal is no more and a Moto GP team principal is the race director for Alpine. With Cyril gone the team is under new control hoping to get close to the top teams. A Blue Livery and a champion under their belt they hope to have a good season in 2021.
Fernando Alonso is coming back from retirement to the team that he actually won his 2 championships with. Joined by him is Esterban Ocon who is an average F1 driver in my opinion. Ocon’s driving isn’t something exciting but he has potential to improve. His 1 year of not being in a car did make a noticeable dent in his performance but 2021 might be different and we will have to see how this would pan out.
The car for 2021 seams to be good from what I’ve seen but can’t really put where it is going to be in the fight as they are in a bit of a grey area when it comes to performance. They never really had a good reliability record so it will be a struggle by the end of the season to keep the 3 engines run 23 races. Overall, the car has the best Livery of the season and with the experienced Alonso and podium sitter Ocon, they are looking to bring the fight to McLaren and Aston Martin.
Ferrari
The team everyone knows, the team that is a part of F1, the oldest team in F1 are just a few names to call the team. The Red car is always a trademark in the sport and they had their highs in the 2000’s but is still to win a championship since 2008. A very long overdue win for the team. Last year was not the best for the team with them having to turn down the power of their engines after an investigation done by the FIA about the legality of the unit.
For the first time ever, the team doesn’t have a World Champion driving for them. Charles Leclerc got the longest contract ever in Ferrari for 5 years making it clear that Ferrari are aiming for a Championship with the boy who comes from Monaco. Vettel who was dropped from the team made a lot of fans judge Ferrari and I feel Ferrari could’ve handled the release of Sebastian better rather than just ringing him up mid lockdown and saying you are not going to drive for us after 2020. Carlos Sainz will be replacing Vettel at Ferrari and honestly it was a good choice. Carlos has some great skill and he was deserving a top seat, After having switching teams multiple time I feel he is on the path to achieve great things with the Red car.
The car in 2021 has been improved a lot according to what we saw in testing. The engine power has been restored to a certain level and the car in general has some performance that they had. But are they ready to win races and challenge RedBull and Mercedes? Personally, I don’t think so but they will be close. They will score multiple podiums but winning multiple races is still grey.
Alpha Tauri
The sister team of RedBull. This Italian team is an underdog. The team is never meant to win races or score podiums but rather to test the drivers to see who is good enough for the top seat at RedBull. Although, the team has won 2 races and multiple podiums over the years and the most recent win was with Gasly in Monza last year which for an Italian team is great news. The first win was also in Monza which makes Monza the teams lucky track.
Gasly will be in the white and blue car for another year and he will try to prove that he deserves the RedBull seat again after being dropped for lack of performance in 2019+, but the hardcore fans will know the real situation that goes inside. Gasly will be joined by a Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda. The youngest Driver in the paddock and the first driver to be born in the 21st century. Yuki is in F1 early due to Honda’s involvement but he has talent and it will be interesting to see how he will perform in his 1st year of F1.
The car has relatively the same performance as last year, it did claim the 2nd fastest time in Testing but we never know how much it is in race pace. The time was done by the rookie, Tsunoda but he did use the DRS earlier than it was allowed and since it was allowed in testing there was no consequences. The team has a relatively experienced driver and 1 of 3 rookies this season and might be a good team to look out to for some interesting racing that can happen in the season.
Alfa Romero
The first champions of F1, may not be the same team as in 1950 but the name is something that has been in the sport. 1 out of 2 individual teams of the sport and for what they do they have a decent place in the sport. The Ferrari engine power was not helping out in 2020 but they are definitely in a good time period.
Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi will be the drivers driving for the team. Kimi is the most loved driver on the grid, its mainly because of his don’t care attitude and he always has been a consistent driver whenever he is racing. As for the Italian driver Giovinazzi, he is a good driver but not a great driver. He may have his work cut out this season if he needs to secure his seat as there are eyes on his seat from F2 drivers like Illiot.
The car for 2021 didn’t stand out much. It doesn’t seam to have much improvement but it is expected to be competitive in the back end of the midfield and taking every opportunity possible to score points this season. Last season wasn’t the best but when comparing to its main rival Hass they did okay and are probably expecting to be a bit closer to the midfield than they usually are.
Hass
The only American based Team on the Grid. It’s been 5 years since the team had their debut race and they are not having the greatest of time. The team was struggling financially and had to take some measures that would keep the team going. After 2019 Hass had a massive downfall with sponsors falling down starting with the very strange sponsor, Rich Energy. After that the team has little to no sponsors and in 2020 after covid they had none. The team’s struggles were clear throughout the season and they took the move of dropping both drivers for 2021 and got 2 rookies in the aid of getting sponsors.
The son of the great Michael Schumacher, Mick will be making his Formula 1 debut with Hass. The 2020 F2 champion has a lot of eyes on him as he is looked up by every one cause of his father’s legacy. This may put him in unnecessary pressure and might be a problem. Mick is a good driver and he might not have the best car on the grid but he will get the most out of it. Joining Mick is the Russian driver Nikita Mazepin. Mazepin, who is probably the driver most fans hate after his acts last December which led to chaos within fans. Mazepin is know to be a very aggressive driver and we will have to see how he would behave this season. He has a lot of backlash so he will have to work hard and prove he’s worth.
The 2021 car livery was among the most talked among livery of the 2021 season as it represents the Russian flag after Mazepin’s father’s company who is the title sponsor for the team. The main concern is that the use of the Russian flag is banned from world sports and the team livery is an exact representation of the Russian Flag. As for the performance of Hass, they might be struggling a lot and its 2 rookies in the 2 seats and the lack of experience might hit them harder than they think it would. The car wasn’t something that stood out in testing either so we will have to see how the season pans out for them.
Williams
The family-owned team is no more. The iconic team was struggling a lot the last few years and had to sell the team. The new owners are an American Investment company who were generous enough to keep the name. 2020 was not a good season for the team as they are the only team not to score points, they came close finishing P11 on multiple occasions but never in the top 10. They are on an improving curve with them being significantly closer in 2020 when comparing to 2019.
The team is keeping the same line up of drivers for 2021. George Russell is in a very hot place as he has a bigger shot at the Mercedes seat for 2022 and he is a driver who takes every drop of performance from the Williams. The Canadian driver Nicholas Latifi didn’t perform great in his rookie year but he is expected to be better this season with experience under his belt. The duo will be performing to get points this season and possibly end the bad years the team had.
The car Williams brought seams to have an improvement. With a driver like Russell in the seat the team might be looking at multiple point finishes and maybe even a Q3 appearance. The team livery is something that was talked about in the Fan community with some saying it looks like a design from the F1 2020 game. Nontheless the team is looking positive and with the new management are planning to climb up the ladder and fight more rather than be in the back.
There you have it, my expectations for the 2021 season. It is a long one but I wanted to cover the team, drivers and the car so you can be fully ready for the 2021 F1 season that will start racing on the 28th of March 2021. It’s going to be a close season with the top 2 teams and the midfield and there will be a lot of battles on track and a lot of drama when the silly season starts as well.
Cue the F1 theme song for the 2021 F1 Season!
Written by: Rtr. Theekshana Gunasekara
Edited by: Rtr. Lakshan Banneheke
Editor