The Red Bull Ring – owned by the owner of Red Bull Racing but has seen more Mercedes cars winning that Red Bull cars in F1 races. Mercedes won both the races held on this track in 2020 and a simple thought and comparison of the general areas that Mercedes are stronger and Red Bull are stronger in would suggest that Mercedes could again be winning both the races held at the Red Bull Ring, even in 2021, but as things would have it Verstappen lead all laps of the race to win the race by a comfortable margin, even if you do not take into consideration the time lost for Hamilton by pitting at the end of the penultimate lap.
THE RACE START AND THE CHAOS
The first lap was somewhat chaos. From Gasly’s puncture and Leclerc’s front wing damage to the Perez and Norris fight. It was a lot of chaos but Verstappen had gotten a comfortable lead, as Lewis Hamilton did not seem to have enough pace to stay close to Verstappen. Verstappen had another good start, just like he has been having at every race he has started on pole. Verstappen had the better line to approach Turn 1 and did not brake too late or too early and hence, had a safe corner entry and corner exit after which he slowly started going further away from Hamilton who did not have enough pace it seemed, and this was in line with some of the data from the practice sessions as well wherein during the race pace simulations, Mercedes seemed to be a bit slower as a team.
With respect to the midfield, they were again going all in with little respect for the thought of playing it safe, and that is what lead to the contact between Leclerc and Gasly and the subsequent contact between Latifi and Gasly. Gasly’s retirement changed the whole dynamics for the middle field because the Alpha Tauri car in general and Gasly especially, was a force to reckon with and if Gasly would have stayed in the race for the whole race, the midfield result would have surely been different not only with respect to Gasly most probably finishing in the points but also how the others would react and race.
Gasly being in the mix would mean two main things – the first being McLaren might would have needed to counter one threat in the form of Gasly probably and Alpha Tauri being one of their main competitors as both teams alongwith Ferrari have their eyes on the 3rd place in the Constructors’ Champioship, McLaren wouldn’t have let this go down so easily like they did with Perez and Bottas. McLaren were also faced with some heating issues when it came to Ricciardo’s car and that is even more why a Gasly – Norris battle for fourth place would have been great for a race which was more or less very very boring by some standards. Second would be that with Gasly there in the mix, there would be one strong competitor whose pitstops might trigger other pitstops, and another car like Gasly’s being in the mix would really get some different strategies than the ones seen going on.
DEBRIS ON THE TRACK
The track had a lot of debris at places, a lot of which wasn’t cleaned for long. This seemed to also be run over or be made contact with by some of the drivers when driving around, and that is not only risky but can also hamper someone’s race and that is what needs to be looked into. Someone should not lose a race or even a single point just because of some debris on the track which wasn’t cleaned up. Small debris which might require a whole clean up and safety car and all can maybe still be left but visible pieces which can be easily picked up, maybe should be cleaned up.
RED BULL GOING WITH PEREZ
Red Bull decided that it would be better to go for a two stopper with Sergio Perez to try and overtake Bottas, now this highlights some great facts, firstly that Bottas and that Mercedes aren’t that fast enough as this wasn’t a strategy Red Bull would look for if Mercedes were as dominant in speed and strategy as they were in the 2020 season. Secondly, that Red Bull are going all in, and are improving. The years of hardwork since 2014, and the fall of Ferrari, are fianlly coming together for Re Bull Racing. This also highlights the power of the Hinda engine which is also so reliable. It is allowing the drivers to constantly keep pushing and still hasn’t required a change in any form and finally, Red Bull work their tyres well, especially Perez whose tyre management was also analysed in RED BULL – SERGIO PEREZ vs MAX VERSTAPPEN | F1 2021 TEAMMATE BATTLES before the start of the season. He is able to get the tyres in the right temperature window fast and then keep them running for long. Red Bull and Perez are doing a great job together.
THE FINAL LAPS
The Final Laps were all about Perez catching Bottas, Verstappen continuing on, and also a bit of Hamilton holding up Carlos Sainz who was trying to unlap himself. The Perez was working well but Bottas had just enough pace to not lose out to Perez by the final laps and it was all about working the tyres, and strategy in as to when to deploy power and when to not but it was an exciting battle of speed. Verstappen was ustoppable and that was sign of good things for Red Bull but also a bit questionable on Mercedes’ speed and and stategies. Also, there was a short while during which for more than a coupld of laps Sainz was stuck behind Lewis who had lapped him and seemed to lose just a bit of time, which might not have completely but just that bit deprived everyone of a possible hunt for Lando by Sainz.
All in all, after the first couple of laps, it was a clean race with not much on track car to car action but some good Red Bull moves.
|THE SEASON STAYS IN THE BALANCE|
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