F1 2021 – spoilers here

That Gary Anderson article is nowhere near as definitive as your summary suggests.

Yes. All we know is that Red Bull had a good test and their car looked well-balanced and easy to drive. The test was in gusty conditions and the Merc seemed affected by that, but it did seem to be reasonably quick and they didn’t really do qualifying simulations so we don’t know how the teams will compare on Saturday afternoon. It’s also possible that there’s something specific to Bahrain that highlights the weakness of the Merc and the strength of the Red Bull, so it’s premature to conclude that the high-rake design has an advantage on all circuits. My guess is that the Merc and Red Bull will have circuit specific advantages, so Hamilton and Verstappen will both be taking poles and winning races right through to the end of the season.

Merc’s objective for the test would have been to learn how the car behaves and whether what they saw in the wind tunnel was also seen in the real world. Merc have amazing technical resources so they will have learned a lot from that test and will be working on sorting out the instability. They will probably be in better shape this weekend and they have five weeks until the 3rd round in Portugal, so they will be working on a new aero kit to fix the problems.

Honda’s engine redesign seems impressive, but there’s always the danger of reliability problems with such big changes. Canada is round 7, so Honda need to be able to get past that without needing engine changes.

Abiteboul – now there’s a mystery – not just sacked from leading the F1 Team, but removed from the Renault group altogether.

Hmmm, not really when you think about it. When they came back into F1 the plan was podiums by 2018, and challenging for the championship by 2020. When you miss the first target by two years, and get nowhere near the second, and what’s more the customer teams McLaren and racing Point are doing better than you…Heads are gonna roll.

what’s more the customer teams McLaren and racing Point are doing better than you

Well, RP had a clone of the best car on the grid. Getting beaten by McLaren, using the same engine, then having your $50 million star driver jump ship to them must have been hard to explain to the board.

Quite. Two places below McLaren is not a good result.

I’ll bet there was some hasty knitting of a bottom cushion beforehand…

 It’s also possible that there’s something specific to Bahrain that highlights the weakness of the Merc

I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that last year’s race at Bahrain that the Merc was very hard to drive (understeer) around some of the tighter in-field corners, and also they had to turn the wick down a bit on the engine…None of which detracts from the fact that last year’s race was totally dominated by RB and Verstappen in particular of course. But testing done in that same area is going to reflect on the Merc I’d have thought?

But then the Merc seemed prone to oversteer on turn-in, so have they disrupted their own balance or is the new floor just unstable in gusting wind? Well find out soon enough…

Well, RP had a clone of the best car on the grid. Getting beaten by McLaren, using the same engine, then having your $50 million star driver jump ship to them must have been hard to explain to the board.

Yup, I think that it’s fair to say that Renault had the faster car more often than McLaren but Renault’s strategists were behind the curve. McLaren rarely dropped the ball and had Racing Point not been given a penalty for their brake ducts, McLaren would’ve finished fourth.

Abiteboul in some way was a victim of his own lofty ambition, he inherited a Lotus team that was utterly skint and depleted and was going to require a lot of remedial investment to get back up to speed. It’s clear that Renault-Nissan weren’t prepared to stump up Mercedes levels of investment either.

Racing Point are the team that consistently out perform where they sit in terms of budget.

You have the big 3 (Merc, Ferr, RB) spending $400m+. Then you have the 2nd Tier (Renault, Mclaren) spending 250-300m, a third tier of about $200m annually which is Racing Point and Haas, and then the rest at rough $150m (Alfa, AlphaT and Williams).

Based on that you can kind of understand why Renault sacked Cyril. Only Ferrari’s disaster saved them from 6th in the constructors.

PJM1974
Abiteboul in some way was a victim of his own lofty ambition, he inherited a Lotus team that was utterly skint and depleted and was going to require a lot of remedial investment to get back up to speed. It’s clear that Renault-Nissan weren’t prepared to stump up Mercedes levels of investment either.

Lotus were basically breaking even before Renault insisted they dropped Pastor and his sponsors, leaving a £30m hole in their budget.

Racing Point are the team that consistently out perform where they sit in terms of budget.

They were, but it’s important to understand why. Now they want to step up to be title contenders, that will be difficult.

Back when they were struggling, they had no pretentions that they were just struggling to survive. They bought in any parts they could and had no compunctions about copying other teams designs (which isn’t illegal.) Perez was technically a pay driver, his money saved the team from collapse.

The problem with buying parts and copying designs is that you don’t understand the thinking behind the designs. RP copied the Merc, but they don’t understand the details of the aerodynamic design because they don’t have the wind tunnel data used to refine them. Now they have an unstable car, but I think they may struggle to fix it, whereas the Merc engineers understand the fundamental concepts of how it works.

Same goes with things like transmissions, brakes, etc. Williams and McLaren can still build an entire car because they always had the philosophy that they aimed to challenge for championships, even though it would have been cheaper to buy those in. Next year the rules change and RP/AM don’t have full control over the design of their car because they are stuck with Merc transmissions. If Merc get the design right, AM might come in second, but they won’t come first because you will never win championships by copying.

McLaren and Williams stuck to the idea that they aimed to challenge for championships and needed to be able to design every part of the car rather than aiming to be top of the B teams. The reason Ricciardo went to McLaren is that they were the top option available for 2022 (rejected by Red Bull, Merc, and Ferrari). McLaren are far from favourites for next year, but they can’t be discounted at title contenders because they understand how to build a complete car. Racing Point only ever aimed to survive by beating the mid-field teams, they won’t be title contenders next year because they don’t have the infrastructure to do that.

Funny thing is I quite like Vettel as a person. He became insufferable during the last 18 months or so of his championship years at RB and some of the time at Ferrari. However, away from the race track or out of the kitchen heat of racing he is quite personable. My sense is that AM wanted him as much for his experience and what he might be able to bring to the team in helping them to develop and not just a vain hope that he might help them win more races on the track. Before we get to the first weekend I am quite looking forward to this season as it does feel as though there could be quite a big shake up – especially if RB are fast out of the gates. Agre with other comments that Mercedes are a class act and do appear to have the ability to get to grips with issues in their cars quite quickly – although they did struggle a couple of seasons ago in trying to get the tyres into their operating window. In the end it didn’t matter too much as Vettel failed to capitalise and RB weren’t fast enough early enough in the season. I can certainly anticipate tensions at RB between Perez and Max which, ironically, may end up costing them vital points. Really looking forward to the season!

. My sense is that AM wanted him as much for his experience and what he might be able to bring to the team in helping them to develop and not just a vain hope that he might help them win more races on the track.

Vettel and Adrian Newey had a close relationship at Red Bull, they communicated well and built a series of cars that won four WDCs on the trot.

RP copied the Merc, but they don’t understand the details of the aerodynamic design because they don’t have the wind tunnel data used to refine them. Now they have an unstable car, but I think they may struggle to fix it, whereas the Merc engineers understand the fundamental concepts of how it works.

I’m beginning to come round to this way of thinking – on outright pace RP should not have finished fourth last year, something was amiss. This year they’ve tinkered with the car and installed 2020 Merc rear suspension but they don’t appear to be able to tie it all together.

The reason Ricciardo went to McLaren is that they were the top option available for 2022 (rejected by Red Bull, Merc, and Ferrari). McLaren are far from favourites for next year, but they can’t be discounted at title contenders because they understand how to build a complete car.

McLaren have infrastructure work in the pipeline, including a state of the art wind tunnel that’s likely to be completed early next year. The ’22 car may not benefit from this data in it’s initial form, but it’s sure to develop rapidly after that.

I’d love to see McLaren back at the front. Still my favourite team – the start of the Senna/Prost era was my introduction to F1.

? FP1 GREEN LIGHT ?

We can finally say it… 2021 is GOOOO! #BahrainGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/oJweyTVj4M

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 26, 2021

been looking forward to this season more than any other for a while. Don’t like supporting a team over another but I can’t wait to see if RB and the others can bring the fight to Mercedes.

Alonso slowest so far…I see toys flying soon 🙂

He should have themed toys for each race – cuddly camels for Bahrain perhaps!…

🙂

Vettel doing cheesy Aston Ads.

Bottas fastest, Hamilton third…Norris second(!). Six minutes left.

Both Astons slower than the Alfa Romeos, Ocon and Alonso further back than predicted.

And Verstappen now fastest.

And Verstappen now fastest.

and fewest laps

Verstappen ballsed up the final sector of his fast lap too apparently.

Don’t mean a thing until Sunday afternoon though.

Promising FP1! Hopefully bodes well for some good battles.

Full FP1 results rundown ?#BahrainGP ?? #F1 pic.twitter.com/9TaGKmWXnz

— Formula 1 (@F1) March 26, 2021

Well, those top 9 spots are all pretty volatile 🙂 Five teams in the top 7 suggests a good few drivers have more to come.

Couple of interesting things below there in what looks like it might be a more stable bit of the table, though: specifically Alfa and Alpine quite precisely swapping places compared to where I’d expect them.

Will be interesting seeing how this shakes out over the weekend 🙂

Verstappen ballsed up the final sector of his fast lap too apparently.

and Hamilton was fastest in first sector, but got traffic in the next 2, apparently

Alpine not looking too good there, massive gap to the front and potentially within striking distance of Williams?

Dunno why, but I thought Williams would have made a bit more progress. Still looking a long way off the pace.

Have I missed something with Alfa? They were really struggling last year & it was pretty sad to see Raikonnen fishing around at the back of the field. Firmly in the mid-pack though based off that short practice session.

Interesting to see Vettel already faster than Stroll – I would expect that to be a sign of things to come?

Haas looking like they are just going to be making up the numbers this year.

Tsunoda fastest of the new boys…I’ve heard lots good about him.

Alpine say they were just focusing on long-run pace, not qualifying. I hope that’s the case, otherwise this is what their debrief with Alonso is going to look like.

I don’t know about anyone else but I’ll chuck a fiver in the hat to bribe the Alpine pit wall to send the radio message “Esteban is faster than you”.

Dunno why, but I thought Williams would have made a bit more progress. Still looking a long way off the pace.

I think like Haas – the new money has arrived a bit too late for them and they are focussing on next years car (which is logical). I can see them picking up a few points this season though.

Alfa had the rubbish hobbled Ferrari engine last year. They now have the updated ‘no longer the naughty boys’ engine for this season. Think FIA have given them their fuel back! 🤣

I don’t know about anyone else but I’ll chuck a fiver in the hat to bribe the Alpine pit wall to send the radio message “Esteban is faster than you”.

Cruel. But sometimes cruelty is funny.

Go Lando!

The morning times were on a very hot track, I was expecting to see a change in the afternoon pecking order, but I am cautiously optimistic that McLaren have an absolute belter on their hands for the first time in a decade.

There’s plenty of speculation that Mclaren have done a “Braun” and come up with a rear diffuser concept different to everyone else within the new aero regs

Vettel and Alonso must surely be disappointed with that!