Back to Blog
F1 teams 20217/14/2023 ![]() With the returning Fernando Alonso alongside Ocon, the potential for fireworks at Alpine was obvious. In a muddled management structure, Budkowski emerged as the public face of Alpine as the season progressed and his revelation to Sky Sports in Saudi Arabia that the team’s chassis design was first used in 2019 made their retention of P5 in the constructors’ standings all the more impressive. Mercedes’ decision to optimise what they had very nearly paid off, but it didn’t and has left Hamilton dethroned and potentially disillusioned. That was most evident in Hungary, where Hamilton was the only car to take a standing restart, yet it could also be found in Mercedes’ stubbornness in refusing to upgrade the 2021 car beyond Silverstone, with Hamilton revealing he was prevented from pursuing a particular development path. The hard truth? Verstappen and Red Bull were simply a more agile and potent partnership than Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes, who were at times slow to react to what was happening in front of them. There were hints of fragility when Mercedes last went to war with Ferrari across 2017 and ‘18, but the difference this time was Red Bull and Max Verstappen were never going to be gradually worn down. Not the greatest year for Wolff, who along with his team did not respond well to being challenged. Now for Vasseur to stop Alfa being so wasteful on race weekends… 7: Toto Wolff, Mercedes It is, on paper, a well-balanced line-up. Provided his post-Mercedes motivation remains high, Bottas’ raw pace comes with the promise of taking Alfa to heights unseen since 2018, while Zhou brings with him the potential to tap into the irresistible Chinese market. The decision to stop persevering with F1’s invisible man, Antonio Giovinazzi, risks alienating Ferrari, but will at least allow Alfa to become the masters of their own destiny. Great leaders sometimes have to make unpopular decisions and Vasseur’s move to sign Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou for 2022 was cited as a key reason behind Sauber chairman Pascal Picci’s resignation in the autumn. Will that future, though, involve Szafnauer, who recently issued a non-denial denial amid reports he is set to join Alpine? Watch this space. Such basic mistakes only feed the perception Aston are not quite the tenacious little team they used to be, although key appointments including Martin Whitmarsh and Dan Fallows suggest they will be a force to be reckoned with in the near future. Sebastian Vettel’s P2 in Baku provided brief respite, but his quest for more in Budapest was undermined by a slow stop costing him the chance to undercut race leader Esteban Ocon before he was later disqualified for a fuel infraction. The 2021 floor changes came with the threat of cutting the low-rake teams off at the knees, yet while Mercedes bounced back to win an eighth consecutive Constructors’ title, Aston Martin were unable to mount a recovery. His brief has perhaps changed from total authority to constant appeasement and, as such, he is a leader and a personality diminished. Steiner never missed an opportunity to bang heads together in the days of Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, but with the son of F1’s god on one side of the garage and the son of the title sponsor on the other he now finds himself in a very different and difficult position. Having two drivers at war never reflects well on the management’s ability to control them, and so it was at Haas as Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin kept on clashing. Here, we rank all 10 on their performances across the 2021 season. The drivers may be the stars of the show but Formula 1’s team bosses have an integral role to play in ensuring their little worlds in the paddock keep turning.
0 Comments
Read More
Leave a Reply. |