Category: F1

Football may not have come to England on Sunday, but as a new race week begins, Silverstone prepares to welcome Formula One for the 56^th championship Grand Prix at the 5.8 kilometre track.

And this is a weekend of new beginnings, fresh ideas and uniqueness. The British Grand Prix will play host to the first of three sprint qualifying races in 2021, and though it may have divided opinion, there is a general anticipation of what the event will now look like.

The weekend will begin with a 60-minute practice session on Friday, before the usual qualifying format is contested for the shortened race on the Saturday.

The usual qualifying day will see a further practice session followed by a 100 kilometre race, where the top three drivers will receive points. This race sets the grid for the Grand Prix itself. Sunday will be a return to normality, as the 52-lap Grand Prix is tackled by the drivers.

Whether this is a genius initiative or just an ostentatious gimmick is up for debate – and it certainly has been debated – but there is no doubting that this is a ground-breaking moment for Formula One.

And it is certain that none of it will cast a shadow over the undeniable magic of a Grand Prix at Silverstone. For the first time since 2019, the Buckinghamshire racetrack will welcome a capacity crowd throughout the weekend in the midst of a heatwave, which will add to what is always a remarkable atmosphere at the former airbase.

And we hope to be in for a cracking weekend. 2020 saw two consecutive race weekends at this track, which saw Lewis Hamilton defy a last-lap puncture to win, before Max Verstappen took his first win of the season the following week.

It also proves a special one for the majority of the teams too. Seven of our 10 teams have bases in the United Kingdom, and many find themselves building some of the finest machines on earth just a small drive away from the circuit.

But for whom will the weekend prove most rewarding? This has been a prominent question throughout the nine races of 2021 thus far, with an ambiguous distinction between Mercedes and Red Bull so far leading us to simply have to wait and see who will be faster.

Adding to this equation will be Mercedes’ much-anticipated update package, and there will be fascination over the effectiveness off it compared to Red Bull.

Incremental attention, meanwhile, is still being given to Valtteri Bottas’ future, as George Russell continues to be linked to the Brackley-based team for the 2022 season. The Brit has reaffirmed that there will be no update on these rumours this weekend.

It is a big weekend for many of the teams, as McLaren and Ferrari continue to battle it out for the third-best team after the enticing battle between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. There are 29 points up for grabs this weekend, and we cannot wait to get started!

In the latest Formula One 2021 calendar news, the Turkish Grand Prix has been confirmed as the 16^th round of the season.

It will replace the Singapore Grand Prix, which was cancelled earlier on this year.

The 5.3 kilometre Istanbul Park held the 14^th race of 2020, in a race which saw Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton pick up his record-equaling seventh world championship.

Originally drafted in to replace the Canadian Grand Prix, Turkey was shortly-thereafter removed due to the Coronavirus pandemic. It was replaced by a double-header in Austria, the first of which is being completed this weekend.

It is yet to be confirmed whether spectators will be permitted to attend the race.

Eight Formula One Grands Prix have been contested at Istanbul in F1, with the first seven held between 2005 and 2011. Following Sebastian Vettel’s win in the early part of the last decade, Istanbul was dropped from the Formula One calendar. Felipe Massa remains the most successful driver in Turkey, winning three in a row between 2006 and 2008.

The race will be held at the start of October, as part of a triple-header sandwiched between the Russian and the Japanese Grands Prix.

Paul Ricard hasn’t been known for its classic races since re-joining the calendar in 2018, but thankfully this weekend’s French GP put an end to that. Max Verstappen claimed Red Bull’s third consecutive victory this season, overtaking Lewis Hamilton on the penultimate lap of the race, with Sergio Perez rounding out a great weekend for the Austrian team in third place. It was a result few would have predicted during the first stint of the race.

Luckily for Red Bull, this was another race where tyres were the talk of the town. Thankfully, random failures weren’t on the agenda on Sunday afternoon, but the morning rain  – combined with higher tyre pressures to combat said failures –  meant the conventional one-stop strategy wasn’t as sure of an option as it was expected to be. This lack of grip even caught Max out on lap one, as the Dutchman slid wide at the first corner, gifting the lead to his title rival.

This was the only mistake Max made all race, meaning he was able to capitalise on strategical errors from Mercedes. After Verstappen made his first stop, Mercedes decided not to react straight away, figuring they had enough of a margin to stay out one extra lap, and retain the lead on a fresher set of tyres. A combination of a lightning fast out lap from the Red Bull, and a slower than expected stop from Mercedes gave Verstappen the lead, and left the Brackley-based team’s pitwall scratching their heads. It’s not the first time Mercedes have lost out in the pits this season, with Red Bull consistently a few tenths quicker at tyre changes. Rarely has that small weakness made as big of a difference as it did on Sunday.

It became clear during the second stint that the hards were not going to last at even a semi-reasonable pace  – unless you had done an epically long first stint à la Perez and Lando Norris –  and that the two-stop might be your best shot of winning. Still, it was a huge risk for Red Bull to call the Dutchman in from the lead, and in doing so they left Mercedes’ hands tied. Either pit, and resign yourself to losing the victory, or hold on for dear life and pray that the tyres would last to the end. Mercedes went all in on the latter option, when perhaps splitting the strategy might have been the best way to go. It was pretty clear from his expletive-laden messages what Valtteri Bottas wanted to do, delivering messages with the air of a man who doesn’t expect to be hanging around the Silver Arrows too much longer.

The Finn’s tyres were cooked, and as soon as he went deep into the Mistral chicane, there was almost an inevitability about the result. Who knows how much longer he’d have been able to hold off Verstappen without that mistake, but that could well be a key turning point when we look back at the championship in six months time. As could the decision to keep not pit Valtteri after he’d been passed by Sergio Perez, with Mercedes clearly gambling on the Mexican getting a penalty – and gaining them three extra points – rather than going for the fastest lap, and crucially taking one point off Verstappen.

Further down the grid, there were some great drives that went under the radar. McLaren were clearly best of the rest, with Norris and Daniel Ricciardo both claiming top-10 finishes. Vettel and Alonso seemed to continue their recent run of form, both scoring multiple points. George Russell also put in a fantastic drive to take 12th, in a race with no retirements, a timely reminder of the young Brit’s talents.

All the talk though was on the brilliant Red Bull strategy, which helped Verstappen extend his championship lead to twelve points over Hamilton. A double-header at their own circuit in Austria now awaits, and it is already starting to feel that if Mercedes do not find some pace soon, their quest for an eighth consecutive championship double will come up agonisingly short.

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A sterling performance from Max Verstappen saw him dominantly beat the Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas as he took his fifth career pole for this weekend’s French Grand prix.

We did not need to wait long for the third disrupted qualifying session in as many Grand Prix weekends, as Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda found the barriers after spinning on the exit of turn one. Mercedes looked as though they were returning to their irresistible form as Hamilton and Bottas briefly topped the timesheets, before the Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez pegged them back again. The end of the session saw an immensely frustrating moment for Lance Stroll and Kimi Raikkonen, as Mick Schumacher wrecked his Haas on the exit of Turn 13. He ironically secured his passage to Q2 as a result, costing the aforementioned duo their final Q1 laps. The Haas driver would however take no further part in qualifying; this was Schumacher’s second qualifying crash in the last three races.

A calmer second qualifying session saw Charles Leclerc narrowly scrape into the top ten, as Esteban Ocon, fresh off a new Alpine contract, was knocked out on the medium tyres. Fernando Alonso, who has not enjoyed the perfect return to the sport, will be glad of out-qualifying his home hero team mate this weekend. George Russell, who did ever so well to once again reach Q2, ended up fourteenth for Williams.

Max Verstappen’s first run in the final session was an immense four tenths quicker than second best Lewis Hamilton, as Mercedes contrived to return to the front, but not to the top of the timesheets. Verstappen’s final run was an improvement of another four tenths, as Sergio Perez’s front row seat was short-lived, as Bottas and Hamilton displaced the Mexican, but still failed to get anywhere near the flying Dutchman, who looked simply unstoppable.

10 of the 16 races at the Circuit Paul Ricard have been won from pole, but the threat of rain tomorrow gives us a chance of a wide-open race, as Max Verstappen seeks to further press home his championship advantage.