Karun Chandhok on the big questions
After an unprecedented season last year, there are plenty of questions and storylines for the upcoming F1 campaign. The Sky pundit gives his verdict
CAN RED BULL – OR THE RULE TWEAKS – STOP THE MERCEDES STEAMROLLER?
The boring answer, of course, is no. Mercedes has stability in terms of personnel, it stopped development of the 2020 car early to focus on 2021, and it has the reliability and momentum of success on its side. So why would the steamroller stop?
But let’s take an optimistic view and look at the back end of last season when, in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, Max Verstappen was genuinely on the pace of the Mercedes drivers.
Red Bull started the season further behind than it would have liked, with a car that seemed to have a much narrower operating window than the Mercedes. Rival aero people in the paddock seem to suggest that the higher-rake philosophy that Red Bull sticks with means it is always going to have a smaller optimal operating window than the flatter set-up of the Mercedes. Red Bull is a top-class team and it’s acutely aware that it needs to start the season stronger than it has in recent years.
The team is also aware that its last two cars were edgy to drive. Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon are both very good racing drivers, but Verstappen is exceptional and Red Bull’s cars have needed his level of talent to deliver the results over the past two campaigns. But having machinery that relies on just the exceptionally talented to deliver results is not always the best game to play.
Red Bull only need look at Benetton’s example from the mid1990s. The car was brilliant in Michael Schumacher’s hands, but the other drivers were never able to extract the same performance. After Michael left, the team didn’t reach those heady heights until the exceptional Fernando Alonso came along – a decade later!
In terms of the rule changes, if you ask the data-driven boffins in the pitlane, they will tell you that the 2021 aero rules are massively different, with downforce levels cut back and heavier tyres of a different construction. They’re right, of course, but let’s be honest: for us watching on, I really doubt we’ll be able to tell much of a difference. The aero changes may not be enough to alter the pecking order, but we know how tricky it is to set up the cars for the Pirelli tyres, and therefore the new rubber for 2021 may affect some people more adversely than others.
WILL LEWIS HAMILTON RETIRE AT THE END OF 2021?
This is a really interesting question, isn’t it?
I think that Toto Wolff and the Mercedes PR team have done a brilliant job of telling the world that everything was fine and normal throughout last year and through the winter. They were extremely nonchalant and, in general, we believed them because they’re very good at their jobs!
But actually when you take a step back, it’s not normal that the last seat on the grid to be signed for 2021 was the reigning world champion’s. It’s not normal that we would go into February before a deal is announced for a driver in the most coveted seat in F1.
It’s not normal that after saying last year that they didn’t just want to sign a one-year deal, they do just that.
Something just doesn’t quite add up. On the one hand, Toto says money wasn’t a sticking point, but then mentioned that the ongoing uncertainties about the impact of coronavirus on F1, and especially in relation to team budgets, meant that it was difficult to make certain commitments now about a longer-term contract.
Lewis clearly has thoughts and aspirations on his life outside of F1. On a number of occasions I’ve personally supported his very public ways of pushing for diversity and inclusivity in the sport. Clearly this is a guy who is not afraid to use his position of power within the sport to lean on the companies and people he works with to invest in the causes he believes in. Good on him!
He may be one of F1’s oldest now, but there’s no question that he’s still at the top of his game. Mercedes could of course sign George Russell alongside Valtteri Bottas for 2022 and still be very competitive, but I’m pretty sure that they will still be working hard to convince Lewis to stay on beyond this new deal.
“LEWIS MAY BE ONE OF F1’S OLDEST NOW, BUT THERE’S NO QUESTION THAT HE’S STILL AT THE TOP OF HIS GAME”
IS SERGIO PEREZ THE RIGHT CHOICE FOR RED BULL?
Yes, I think that out of the drivers who were available on the market, he was the right choice.
The extent of Daniel Ricciardo’s loss to Red Bull has really become clear in the past two seasons. Neither Pierre Gasly nor Alex Albon was able to deliver results alongside Max Verstappen in the way that Ricciardo could.
Perez has shown the maturity that he lacked during his stint with Mclaren in 2013, and seems ready to capitalise on a second opportunity with a top team that very few drivers get. He’s worked extremely hard to shake off the pay-driver tag that seemed to unfairly follow him around. Checo’s tyre management in the
Pirelli era has been right up there with Lewis Hamilton’s and Verstappen’s, but it seemed like in 2020 he was able to raise his game in qualifying as well.
The fact that Perez ended the season fourth in the championship, despite missing two races because of COVID-19 and having an early engine failure in Abu Dhabi, says an awful lot about his ability to consistently hoover up points.
Red Bull doesn’t need Perez to beat Verstappen. It needs him to qualify right behind and stay within five seconds of him in the race, so that they can use two cars to mess around with the Mercedes strategy. If Perez can do that, he could be at Red Bull for a few years ahead.
WILL CARLOS SAINZ THRIVE AT FERRARI?
There are some great intra-team battles shaping up, but this is the one I’m most interested to see in 2021. There seems to be this belief that Ferrari has always looked to have a number one and number two driver in its line-up, and therefore Sainz has been signed as a docile sidekick to Charles Leclerc. While that may have been true in some quarters of Maranello, I think that the Spaniard is going to surprise some people.
Make no mistake, Leclerc is an exceptional talent, and some of his qualifying performances last year were among the best we saw all season. Sainz will have to improve his performance over one lap if he wants to get the psychological (and strategic) upper hand from outqualifying his team-mate.
But on a Sunday, I think there’s little to choose between them and, in fact, Carlos probably makes fewer mistakes. His clumsy shunt in Sochi last year was an exception, and it’s worth remembering that Leclerc had three first-lap incidents in 2020.
Being an Italian speaker will help Sainz get integrated into the team quickly. He’s moving to Italy to be closer to the factory, and his work ethic that’s been inherited from his father will certainly be appreciated by a team looking to rebuild after a miserable 2020.
CAN VETTEL RESURRECT HIS F1 CAREER?
If Sebastian Vettel hadn’t won those four world championships and was only being judged on the past two and a half seasons, then it would be a surprise that a team would actually choose him over Sergio Perez. As my friend David Coulthard often says, “past success is no guarantee for future performance”.
But Aston Martin has decided to bring in Sebastian along with the star power and experience that he will bring to a marque that is re-entering F1. There’s no doubt that if we get the on-form, error-free Sebastian Vettel, then he can be a brilliant asset to the team. The reasons behind his spiral downwards since Hockenheim 2018 remain a mystery to everyone except Seb (and maybe even to him!), but perhaps a change of environment will help to unlock the talent and potential that’s in there. Just look at how the switch back
“RENAULT HAD A CHANCE TO FINISH THIRD IN THE FINAL 2020 TABLE, BUT THE REALITY IS IT DIDN’T”
to Toro Rosso/alphatauri worked for Pierre Gasly in that respect.
Whatever happens, you get the feeling that this could be Vettel’s final team in F1. His legacy has undoubtedly been damaged by the recent past but, with a team closely aligned with Mercedes, and which has a fresh dose of funding and motivated owners, he could leave F1 on a high in a few years’ time.
I have a great deal of respect for the race team from the Silverstone factory, which has consistently operated superbly at the track, irrespective of all the ownership and financial rumblings in the background. People like Andy Green, Tom Mccullough, Andy Stevenson and Bernadette Collins are top-quality personnel who will give Sebastian the respect and support he needs. It’s up to him to channel that into on-track performance.
CAN FERNANDO ALONSO LIFT ALPINE TO THE FRONT OF ‘CLASS B’?
Renault had arguably the sixth-fastest car on average across the season and finished fifth in the 2020 constructors’ championship. You could say that’s where it deserved to finish, but it had a realistic chance of ending up third in the table.
There were a few things that didn’t help the 2020 campaign.
First off, the reliability was a weakness, with points lost on five occasions. The team also didn’t seem to unlock the full potential of the car during pre-season testing and the opening triple-header.
Arguably this also led to Daniel Ricciardo opting to jump ship to Mclaren early. But, once the team got to Silverstone, trimmed off some downforce and got the set-up more sorted out, the RS20 was very quick. Esteban Ocon also took about two thirds of the season to find his feet and, certainly early on, he was some way off Ricciardo’s qualifying pace.
You could use all three of these factors to draw up a hypothetical scenario for the team finishing third last year, but the reality is it didn’t. There have been lots of changes in terms of the rebranding to Alpine as well as on the management side, with Davide Brivio replacing Cyril Abiteboul. On the technical front though, the line-up of Marcin Budkowski, Pat Fry, Alan Permane and Ciaron Pilbeam still leads the way, so at least there’s stability there.
Fernando Alonso is a hard charger with a big personality, and the team will benefit from his leadership and experience. I doubt he’s lost any of his speed, and he’s done enough days in the
2018 car now to knock off the rust, so I suspect he’ll arrive at the opening race fully ready for battle.
The one downside for Alpine could be that, without Mclaren as a customer now, it’s lost an extra source of data for the power unit side as well as a reference of where the ‘Enstone’ chassis is when compared to someone else with the same engine. This is something Renault/alpine will need to look at for 2022 and beyond, as it’s a good and objective way to keep perspective of where the performance of your car is.
HOW WILL LANDO NORRIS STACK UP AGAINST DANIEL RICCIARDO?
In some ways, I think Mclaren has an almost like-for-like replacement from Carlos Sainz to Daniel Ricciardo. The difference, of course, is that the Aussie comes with proven race-winning pedigree, whereas Sainz is yet to break his duck in F1.
In terms of race pace and consistency, I think that Daniel and Carlos are equally matched, but over a single lap Ricciardo is probably a small step ahead, as his exceptional quali laps at Silverstone, Mugello and Sochi showed last year. This one-lap pace is something Lando Norris also excels at, so the quali battle between them will be brilliant to watch.
I was really impressed with Lando’s race performances last year. I thought in 2019 he still had too many races where he lost out to Carlos in terms of tyre management and race pace, but in 2020 he made a good step forward in that area. One thing that Sainz and Ricciardo seem better at is positioning their cars in the right places on the opening few corners of the race, where they seem to gain spots and set themselves up for a good race result.
Mclaren is unquestionably a team on the up again. Zak Brown has done what he does best and put together a fresh influx of investment that the F1 team needed to separate itself from the challenging position that the road car company finds itself in at the moment. Andreas Seidl, James Key and Andrea Stella do an excellent job of leading the race team. The Mercedes engine will of course also give the team a bit of a boost, although not perhaps the halfsecond that some people seem to think.
WHO WILL BE THE SEASON’S BEST ROOKIE?
Mick Schumacher comes into F1 with the highest profile of the three rookies. As F2 and F3 champion, he’s proven that he fully deserves his place and it’s not just about his surname. Mick seems a very level-headed young man and I think he’s shown good mental strength to climb the ladder with all the pressure of being Michael’s son, but sadly without having Michael at the track to help and support him.
I’m slightly confused with where Ferrari has put Mick, though. I think it would have made more sense to place him at Alfa Romeo alongside Kimi Raikkonen, whose experience would have been invaluable in guiding the rookie through his first season in F1. Antonio Giovinazzi had some solid races in the second half of the year, but it doesn’t look like he’s actually going to end up in the works red cars, so why not place him at Haas? That way, both Ferrari customer teams would have had one rookie and one driver with some F1 experience.
Yuki Tsunoda had a very good rookie season in F2 in 2020. Trevor Carlin, whose team the Honda protege raced for last year, reckoned that Tsunoda is probably as fast as F1 podium finisher and Indianapolis 500 winner Takuma Sato (another Carlin/honda graduate to F1), which bodes well. He seemed to be particularly good at tyre management and biding his time in the races while others around him destroyed their rubber. This
“IT WOULD HAVE MADE MORE SENSE TO PLACE MICK AT ALFA WITH KIMI”
could prove to be a useful tool for him in this Pirelli era of F1.
Alphatauri has a good team of engineers led by Jody Egginton and Jonathan Eddolls, who are well-versed in looking after and educating young and inexperienced drivers. They of course now have a race winner in Pierre Gasly in the other car, and he will be a good benchmark for Tsunoda.
As I mentioned before, I’m confused by the Ferrari driver placements, because Haas is now left without an established benchmark driver. Nikita Mazepin showed flashes of speed in his F2 days, but also seemed to get into skirmishes and unnecessary incidents with other drivers. The Russian has actually done quite a bit of mileage in Mercedes F1 cars in private and young driver tests, so he probably comes into this season with the most F1 experience under his belt of the three rookies but, based on their past racing history, you’d expect him to be a step behind Schumacher.
Mazepin has already started his F1 career on the back foot.
His well-documented incident with a young woman has, rightly, raised a great deal of criticism. The silence in terms of the punishment and disciplinary action taken against him hasn’t done him or the team any favours with the fans, and has ramped up the pressure even before he’s set foot in a Haas F1 car.
WILL WE FINALLY SEE A WILLIAMS REVIVAL?
F1 teams are more like cruise liners than speedboats when it comes to turning around momentum. Through 2018 and 2019, Williams looked like it was firmly headed for the shore, but in 2020 it at least managed to drop the anchor and stop outside the shallow port.
Williams was the most-improved team of 2020, gaining a massive 1.3% on pace from where it was in 2019. Considering that the benchmark team Mercedes wasn’t standing still, that’s an impressive effort, although of course Williams was looking for performance from further behind.
The next 18 months are critical for Williams and Dorilton
Capital. Thus far, the new owners have done a good job by coming in and immediately putting their money where it mattered by paying off suppliers and creditors. They’ve also made key decisions such as the hiring of the well-respected
Jost Capito, and switching to the customer Mercedes gearbox for 2022. The latter, of course, is a philosophical departure from the family-run Williams operation, and is a clear sign from Dorilton that it is prepared to do things differently.
On the downside, despite having a slightly quicker car on average than Haas, the team didn’t manage to sneak into the points all season long. George Russell could and should have picked up a couple at Mugello and Imola, but ultimately, for 2021, the team will be looking to take the next step towards the midfield by getting ahead of at least the Ferrari customer teams.
ARE 23 RACES TOO MANY, AND WHAT SHOULD THE CALENDAR LOOK LIKE?
With the ongoing COVID-19 issues, I don’t think we’ll get to 23 races this year but, even in general, I do think it’s a few too many. I really believe that something around 18 or 19 is the maximum number in terms of striking the balance between a wide variety of races and making each one a ‘special event’. Once you get up to 23 races, it gets to a point where people start to think, ‘Oh, we can miss this one because there’ll be another one next week’.
It’s also a tricky balance to sustain for the workforce. The drivers and TV folks like us are lucky because we swoop in on a Thursday and leave straight after the race but, for the majority of team personnel, they’re gone for a week at a time, which really makes family life hard to sustain. Once you add in testing, it basically means they’re gone for half the year. This has already started costing the teams some good people, who are willing to earn less money but do Formula E or the World Endurance Championship instead, and only be away from their children for half as many weeks per year.
In terms of the balance, I think we’ve got it right, with new and historic venues, street tracks and permanent facilities. It was nice to go to Mugello and Algarve as they created some great racing, although I do think these cars are now a bit too big and fast for Imola, which was largely processional apart from after the restart.
All of this is of course dictated by the commercial model and for 2021, once again, by the pandemic. F1 did a brilliant job of putting 17 races on last year and, if we can get to 18 or 19 again this year, that will be a great achievement.
“THIS HAS ALREADY STARTED COSTING THE F1 TEAMS SOME GOOD PEOPLE TO OTHER SERIES”