A great way to start a new era!
The season is underway, and began with a promising opening race. Yes, it wasn’t thrilling throughout, yet you can never complain when there is a great battle for the lead, and plenty of overtaking besides that. These regulations do seem to have worked as intended, we were never going to have Hollywood races every weekend, instead, it is just producing more opportunities for drivers to pass slower cars.
It is rather incredible to witness the rebirth of an icon of the sport, as Ferrari have been resurrected by these wholesale changes in the rules. All last year, we were talking about the potential of Ferrari using this to vault up the grid, but I don’t think we believed it would go this well for them. Major respect has to be given to Binotto and his fellow management, for motivating the team through some tough times, under all the pressure they had. As for the drivers, they did their job too, with Leclerc stepping into an unofficial lead role at the team, which will likely be contested all year, and taking the fight to Max all weekend. He really is looking like the favourite for the title right now. Sainz did have a tough weekend, not able to get near Charles at any point. He will surely bounce back though in the coming races. The rest of the season is an unknown for Ferrari, as it is for every team, but momentum is truly on their side.
They may not have finished there, but Red Bull had the second fastest car all weekend. It was expected that they wouldn’t be able to match last years pace, just as a result of putting so much effort into 2021, so it is impressive to see their pace at the moment. Verstappen was picking up where he left off, leading the team, and taking the fight to an arguably faster Ferrari, but he couldn’t topple them. That wasn’t the worst of it though, as the team suffered major reliability issues, both with steering racks, and apparently fuel pumps, which caused both drivers to retire. Perez had been doing excellently until then, hounding Sainz for the last spot on the podium. These issues not only cost them a huge bag of points, but highlight some potential issues for the rest of the season. Maybe this will be where the focus on 2021 hurts them!
After no one believed them for the past few weeks, the reality of the situation has dawned on the paddock, and wider sport, as Mercedes are truly the third fastest car right now. Porpoising is the problem, and when they fix it, I do think Ferrari and Red Bull have a challenge on their hands. Bearing all that in mind, they did all they could in the race, and may even count themselves lucky. Hamilton drove just as anyone would expect, maximising the car, and helping the team move forwards. Russell’s pace was very impressive, as he pretty much matched Lewis over the stints, only slightly slower. This shows what a talent he could be in the future. Their performance in the coming races all hinges on whether they can fix the bouncing issue.
This weekend belongs to Ferrari; however, the feel good story was Haas, who are somehow 3rd in the constructors right now. They have Magnussen to thank for that, who came back to the sport all guns blazing, and was almost challenging the Mercedes. This has given him another chance to advertise his talents, and he probably won’t be leaving Haas for a few years now. Schumacher was overshadowed by his teammate, and even accounting for the contact and spin with Ocon, he should have done better in the race probably. Let’s just hope he is taking time to get to terms with the new car, which we have seen be the case in the past. Will this be a one off for the team? There is the argument, that during testing, Haas got more running in representative conditions due to freight issues, which may have elevated their pace. That being said, I can’t see a huge drop in pace from them by the next race.
Alfa Romeo, just like Haas, have had a turn around over the winter, to go from the back to the front, and I don’t think it is a coincidence that all 3 Ferrari powered teams made huge gains over the break. Bottas will surely be glad that Mercedes dopped him now, as he will get so much more respect from the fans for finishing 6th in an Alfa Romeo, than being beaten by Lewis in a Mercedes. We always knew he had a lot of talent, he just wasn’t quite on a level with Lewis. Just as impressive was Zhou, who managed to just get some points on his debut. Not only was his pace solid, but he was able to pass cars, and said that he gained a lot of confidence on the brakes during the race. Hopefully the rest of his season goes better than Tsunoda’s last year.
Alpine were firmly in the points for most of the race, and it does look as though the battle between them, Haas, Alfa Romeo, and AlphaTauri could be brilliant this year. Ocon did not cover himself in glory with his move on Mick, but recovered to beat Alonso, which is never a bad result. Otherwise, it was a quiet race for them. As I mentioned, AlphaTauri were battling for the points in the race, and Tsunoda did manage to bag some, despite the issues for Gasly. If he can be more consistent this year, and not crash as much, AlphaTauri look to have a great car underneath them.
I don’t even know what to say about McLaren, as even with the brake issues, no one thought it would be this bad for them. We have no idea how deep these issues are, and whether we will only see it at Bahrain, however, I don’t feel confident about the rest of their season. This is not what either Lando or Daniel signed up for.
It is a similar story for Williams and especially Aston Martin, who look equally as deflated as McLaren. They seem to have missed the design of the cars by a fair way, which it was hoped would not happen with the new regulations. On the other hand, it could just be them not being used to the car yet, but that might just be wishful thinking.
Looking back at my pre-season pecking order a week ago, my gut was correct for the front half of the field, but way off on the rest. That just shows how big these rule changes were, and it has really left some teams scratching their heads. On to Saudi Arabia next, where the chaos could be turned up to another level, on that tight, high speed circuit.
-M
Meaning of Motorsport 