Expectations and predictions for the 2021 season of Formula 1
As of writing, we are five days to seeing the cars out on track in Bahrain. Many changes happened from where we left off in Abu Dhabi, specifically driver changes, team changes and my overall expectations for the year.
Many changes in the driver pairings for this year. Daniel Ricciardo to McLaren, Carlos Sainz Jr to Ferrari, Sebastian Vettel to Aston Martin, and Sergio 'Checo' Perez to Red Bull are the key driver swaps. We also say farewell to Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen as they venture to Indycar and IMSA respectively. Alex Albon has been demoted to the position of reserve driver for Red Bull while Daniil Kvyat moves to Alpine, as a test driver.
Plenty of new faces as well as one new but very familiar face. The rookies of the 2021 season are Yuki Tsunoda in Alpha Tauri, Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin in Haas and two-time world champion, Fernando Alonso in Alpine.
Having Alonso back in F1 was never quite a huge surprise since everyone expected him to return sooner or later. Personally, I'm glad that he's back in the cockpit and excited to see his performance this year with Alpine.
Now back to the actual rookies, Schumacher, Tsunoda and Mazepin finished in the top five of the 2020 Formula 2 standings in first, third and fifth respectively.
Schumacher and Mazepin in Haas came as quite a surprise. At the end of 2020, Haas was in terrible shape so having two rookies with minimal experience in an F1 car brings many questions : Is this what Haas really needs? Can the two rookies bring out the best in the 2021 car? Will the fresh slate be what Haas needs to get back on their feet?
Enough about Haas, let's talk about the drivers themselves. Mick Schumacher, 2020 F2 champion, member of the Ferrari Driver Academy and son of seven time world champion, Michael Schumacher. He is a talented driver and it's not just because of his last name. Speedy starts and smart, tactical braking are some key attributes of Schumacher's driving style. He is a very capable driver and fought hard against Vice Champion and fellow academy driver, Callum Ilott. The world definitely has its eyes on him.
Nikita Mazepin, fifth in the championship and hailing from Russia. His performance in 2020 was quite a surprising one since his team, Hitech GP, was a brand new team in F2 and he had a pretty underwhelming 2019 season. Mazepin has a very aggressive driving style and questionable on track movement. It doesn't get any better off track because he has plenty of controversies following him. (Topics surrounding him are pretty sensitive so I will not cover them here because I aim to speak about his driving ability without prejudice and bias.) Expectations both on track and off track are high for him.
Yuki Tsunoda, member of Honda Formula Dream Project and Red Bull Junior Team, winner of the 2020 Anthoine Hubert award (Rookie of the Year), and youngest driver on the 2021 grid hails from Japan. A lot of expectations on him in the Alpha Tauri car as he replaces long time Red Bull academy driver Daniil Kvyat. With a new RB junior driver making the step up to F1, there are many doubts as to which driver is capable of matching number one Red Bull driver, Max Verstappen. Many have come and failed but Tsunoda seems to have good prospects of being the one seeing how he is able to quickly adapt to new cars. Very excited to see his performance this year.
Two teams have had major rebranding as mentioned earlier. Racing Point will now be known as Aston Martin Cognizant while Renault is now Alpine. Some key changes that come with the name change is colour. Aston Martin will race with British racing green colour and Alpine will pride themselves with the colours of the French flag. These two have had quite the battles in the last few years for the "Best of the Rest" position in the constructors championship. Very excited to see them go head to head on track especially since they will both have one relatively young driver (Lance Stroll vs Esteban Ocon) and extremely experienced world champions (Sebastian Vettel vs Fernando Alonso).
Now, the moment you've been waiting for.... My predictions for the constructor championships~ (no driver standings because honestly it can be pretty unpredictable)
I believe that a completely fresh driver lineup at Haas will do them some good but the car has already been built so there's not much other than to build data and learn from there. Hopeful for them in 2022, not so much for 2021....
The reason why Alfa Romeo is below Williams is simply because I am unsure of the reliability and strength of the Ferrari-powered engines. An engine can really make or break the car and since. Ferrari has been going down, I think they might lose out to the Mercedes-powered Williams.
Williams have been improving pretty rapidly and I trust in their upward growth and potentially see points this year! There have been a bunch of Q2 appearances for George Russell and Nicholas Latifi has finished P11 a few times, I really think 2021 will be the oasis in the desert for them.
Ferrari is just not doing too well in my opinion. I love Ferrari and have supported them since I first started watching F1 but whatever is going on with the car has been really sad. Not sure how good of a chassis they can come up with since they wanted to try something new this year which is very bold of them. With Leclerc and Sainz, they are both really good drivers and have. their merits but they tend to make poorly planned moves and pretty bad luck. So yeah, P7 for them.
Alpha Tauri with Gasly and Tsunoda is a superb combination. The Alpha Tauri car is also very competitive and with the right circumstances even won a race! They have potential to fight for that P3 in the constructors but not too sure about the Honda engine as compared to the Mercedes engines and Alpine.
Now this is where the competition gets tight. Honestly, this could be anyone's game but I decided to put them as McLaren, Aston Martin, and Alpine respectively. McLaren has made leaps and bounds in terms of progress. Since 2019, they've gotten 3 podiums and that was with a Renault engine. Now. imagine how many more they can get with a Mercedes engine. That's where the 2021 McLaren car comes in, along with the experience of Daniel Ricciardo. Aston Martin will follow closely behind but I think they might have a slow start to the season and then pull in big points towards the end. Lastly, Alpine in P6. I think they're great but the team has a very strange power play since they don't actually have a team principal. They are also the only one with a Renault engine so they might lose out a bit more than the others.
Obviously, the top two are Mercedes and Red Bull respectively. I don't think I need to clarify further. Even though Mercedes have shown some struggle during Winter Testing, I think they will have everything settled by the first race in Bahrain. Red Bull might be much closer in competition to Mercedes than previous years if Verstappen doesn't have a bad luck streak of getting knocked out by other people and Perez is able to withstand the pressure of being Red Bull's second driver and is able to hone the car to his strengths as he is quite a consistent driver.
