Racetrackmasters

F1 rookie Nikita Mazepin made his first appearance behind the wheel of Haas 2021 car, the VF-21 giving it its shakedown in Bahrain’s Sakhir International Circuit. Haas unveiled its 2021-spec car, complete with a revised livery, last week and on Wednesday the VF-21 was fired up for the first time. The fire-up had not been able to take place previously owing to ongoing travel restrictions that are in place between the United Kingdom and Italy. Mazepin, who has previously tested Formula 1 machinery with Force India and Mercedes, carried out mileage on Thursday in Bahrain, officially as part of a filming day. Ferrari also gave its SF21 its track debut for a filming day while Aston Martin was in action for the second of its two allocated days. Mazepin’s Haas team-mate Mick Schumacher is due to sample the VF-21 for the first time when pre-season testing begins on Friday.

Ferrari has revealed its SF21 Formula 1 car, boasting a two-tone livery and green Mission Winnow logo on its engine cover but not everyone is a fan.Team president John Elkann declared Ferrari have “learned the lessons” of the Italian Formula One stable’s worst season in 40 years with a new car to power new success. The new colour scheme though, which goes from red to burgundy at the rear and green on the top, has divided fans on social media. The controversial colour scheme won’t mean much though if Ferrari can produce better results. At the launch in Maranello Elkann said that “2020 is behind us but won’t be forgotten and will have made us stronger”. Racing director Laurent Mekies agreed that “2021 is about the lessons learned in an incredibly difficult 2020 campaign. “The last season has put us to the test both on track and at the factory. “We have tried to learn from our mistakes and to improve in the areas where we were simply not strong enough. “Of course, in context of frozen technical regulations and new financial regulations, there is a limit to how fast we can turn things around but nevertheless, we are trying to reconstruct our way back to the more competitive side of the grid.”

Formula 1 designers and engineers will be expecting to be busy after the pre-season testing when rival teams will be putting their new 2021 F1 cars on the track while others will try to copy them. However, regulations require that the 2021 F1 cars should be a modification of last year’s cars, but there are also new changes which include new floors and bargeboards as every team was given development tokens to upgrade their cars. Mercedes, who unveiled their 2021 contender last week admitted they didn’t display all the upgrades on their new car as they wanted to keep them a secret. “Of course we have hidden a new super trick there, otherwise we would have shown it. You will all be amazed when you see it. If we show everything now, we give the competition extra options,” Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff said. “They can then look at things, evaluate them and maybe even calculate them with CFD models. This would allow them to come onto the track at the first, second or maybe third race with a similar update.” But with the period between testing which will be on March 12 and the season opener which will kick off on March 26, teams may tend to copy one another. “The secrecy that people are showing at the moment [is] the area around the side of the floor, in front of the tyre, the brake ducts, how people reacted to all that area,” Alpine technical director Pat Fry told RaceFans.net. “I think it’s the things that people will be trying to keep their powder dry on. “In reality, I could see something on someone’s car and if it’s a different fence in that area or a different shape of floor in that area, I could be testing that in the [wind] tunnel in two days and have it on the car in a week. “So a large rule change has happened – OK, a very limited part of the car – but it would be quite easy to react and see if someone has got something that’s working better than everyone else. “It’s just the nature of Formula 1, isn’t it? We all think we’re clever and we all try and hide what we’re doing and then you find out how quick you are come the Bahrain race.”

Formula 1 will be returning to the track this month for the 2021 season. This means the new 2021 F1 cars will for the first time hit the track as a group for the pre-season testing which will happen over the weekend although things have slightly changed as a result of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The pre-testing session will take place in Bahrain at the Sakhir International Stadium and not at Catalunya Circuit in Barcelona as it was the tradition. All these changes were made to ensure easier movement of people because the season opener will also happen in Bahrain a month later. The Australian round which normally is the season opener was postponed due to the pandemic. The 2021 pre-season will only be one which will comprise of three testing days; Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The time frame has also been set for the three days; the first session will be from 10:00-14:00 while the second will start from 15:00-19:00 local time giving only one hour for lunch break. Testing would normally start from 0800hrs to 1700hrs but this time round there will be an opportunity to run for a night-time run as the sunset falls around 1745hrs. With such little running, the teams will be very keen to make the most out of the track to test the minor modifications they have added to their new cars. Full-time drivers will get the bulk of the limited test runs with only Williams confirming that they will run one of their test drivers, Roy Nissany for the Friday session but George Russell and Nicholas Latifi will take over Saturday and Sunday. Some teams have opted to split running on more than one day, with drivers swapping after the lunch break. So far only a handful of teams have confirmed their plans. 2021 F1 Testing Driver Line-Up Team Friday Saturday Sunday Mercedes TBC TBC TBC Red Bull M. Verstappen (AM) S. Perez S. Perez (AM)M. Verstappen (PM) McLaren D. Ricciardo (AM)L. Norris (PM) TBC TBC Aston Martin TBC TBC TBC Alpine TBC TBC TBC Ferrari TBC TBC TBC AlphaTauri TBC TBC TBC Alfa Romeo K. Raikkonen (AM)A. Giovinazzi (PM) A. Giovinazzi K. Raikkonen Haas M. Schumacher (AM)N. Mazepin (PM) N. Mazepin (AM)M. Schumacher (PM) M. Schumacher (AM)N. Mazepin (PM) Williams R. Nissany N. Latifi G. Russell

Haas has become the final team to fire up its 2021 Formula 1 car ahead of pre-season testing in Bahrain. Haas built up its VF-21 at its Banbury base but could not fire up the car owing to Italy-based Ferrari power unit personnel not travelling to the United Kingdom. The personnel would have needed to quarantine for up to two weeks in the United Kingdom prior to undertaking the same period of isolation upon return to Italy, owing to ongoing Covid-19 travel restrictions. But on Wednesday at the Bahrain International Circuit the personnel were able to gather for the VF-21 to be fired up in the garage. Haas’ VF-21 is due to run for the first time when testing begins on Friday at the venue. Speaking at the launch of Haas’ 2021 car last week team boss Guenther Steiner said: “This year we were lucky as a lot of parts were carried over. “You can do that [not firing up until testing]; with a complete new car you could never do this, you couldn’t take the risk.” Haas will be the only team on the grid with an all-rookie pairing. Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin will split running in the VF-21 across the three days of pre-season testing. “I think that is one of the difficult things this year that these guys don’t get a lot of driving before going into the first race weekend but it is what it is and you cannot change it,” said Steiner. “The only thing that we try to do to make sure that we do as much running without issues. “You always try to do that anyway, try to go there without issues but a little more emphasis on that one because every minute counts now.”

Ferrari has unveiled its new 2021 contender, the SF21, which it hopes will put the Italian outfit back on the right track this season. The Scuderia’s latest design features an all-new livery that includes a color scheme that fades from red to retro burgundy, and a green Mission Winnow logo. But the cosmetic change isn’t the only striking difference with the Sf21’s predecessor, with the car also featuring a new nose and cape design. A down-on-power engine and excessive aerodynamic drag weighed heavily on the performance of Ferrari’s SF1000 last year, a deficit that led to one of the worst seasons in the Italian outfit’s modern history. The House of Maranello’s engineers residing in both its chassis and engine departments have worked hard in the past few months to significantly improve the performance of the Scuderia’s 2021 challenger which is obviously based on last season’s car as teams carried over their basic 2020 designs. Ferrari’s new charger integrates this year’s regulation changes which have led to modifications to the car’s floor, bargeboards and brake ducts, while the SF21 will be powered by a heavily updated power unit which has shown promising results during dyno testing according to Scuderia boss Mattia Binotto. To extract the most of its 2021 contender, Ferrari will rely once again on the talented Charles Leclerc and new recruit Carlos Sainz who has replaced Sebastian Vettel alongside the Monegasque.

Lewis Hamilton is heading into the 2021 season feeling “a bit grumpy”, according to respected F1 commentator and former driver Martin Brundle. Brundle, who works for Britain’s Sky, said he has just finished filming some television features with the seven time world champion. “He was very generous but a bit grumpy actually, I thought generally,” he told The Sun. “It’s interesting that his right-hand man, Marc Hynes, is no longer working with him. I sensed he possibly wasn’t super happy with the way the negotiations have worked out at Mercedes.” Indeed, 36-year-old Hamilton has only agreed a one-year contract extension for 2021, with fellow Briton Lando Norris suspecting the Mercedes driver’s career is now winding down. “He’s a guy who likes to do a lot of other stuff outside of F1,” said the McLaren driver. “He knows what he wants to do. He wants to go and enjoy life outside of F1. He doesn’t spend his whole life driving in circles.”

On Wednesday, Ferrari will be the last team to unveil the new 2021 livery. Where we have seen an impressive new livery with many teams, we should of course not expect anything crazy from Ferrari. The SF21 will appear in red again, the difference will be in the details.Still, that doesn’t make Ferrari’s presentation boring in advance, because Ferrari has some work to do. That actually dates back to 2019, when Ferrari fooled the competition with their (illegal) engine, but also themselves. The competition and the FIA discovered Ferrari’s trick and so the engine had to be scaled back. Ferrari clearly did not take this scenario into account in 2019, because the SF1000 was designed to add even more downforce and thus drag. However, with less power than expected, it hurt the team and its customers a lot. Ferrari fell to sixth place among the constructors and did not win a single race in 2020. The SF21 must quickly move on. With a brand new engine and the possibility to make some changes to the car with two tokens, Ferrari has to take another step up. It is therefore very interesting to see what Ferrari has changed about the car, although we will only see in Bahrain how they compare to the competition.

Ferrari and Mercedes have taken up Bahrain’s vaccination offer ahead of the 2021 season opener. We reported last week that despite the Kingdom of Bahrain offering Formula 1’s entire travelling circus the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, the sport turned it down. F1 explained that it has “no plans to be vaccinated as a travelling group ahead of the already established rollout of vaccines through the health system in the UK”. La Gazzetta dello Sport, however, claims that Ferrari has in fact answered ‘yes’ to Bahrain’s vaccine offer. “This means that, strictly on a voluntary basis, the staff of the team that is already in Bahrain for the pre-season test will have time to receive the double dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine,” correspondents Luigi Perna and Giusto Ferronato wrote. “Ferrari first contacted the health authorities of Emilia Romagna and in the absence of any objection a total of about 100 team members have already been vaccinated,” the Italian newspaper added. “Mercedes has also offered the same opportunity to its staff.”

Daniel Ricciardo has introduced his own wine range called the DR3. The seven-time Grand Prix winner has partnered iconic wine brand St Hugo. In a funny social media video, Ricciardo was the star of St Hugo’s advert which launched the new brand on Tuesday.

There have been rumors of Lewis Hamilton wanting more money or a bigger stake in the team, on the other hand, there have been rumors of Mercedes unwilling to give Lewis a long term contract, there are some other rumors that state Mercedes is not even willing to match the money they paid Lewis Hamilton in their previous contract.Amidst all of this, there have been talks about Lewis Hamilton losing his bargaining power because of George Russell’s performance at the Sakhir GP. Many pundits have given their views as well, as we saw Eddie Jordan famously said that he would have fired Hamilton if he were to make such demands. Lewis Hamilton is the best driver on the grid. There aren’t many drivers on the grid that can do what Lewis did in Turkey in 2020. Having a car incapable of winning and taking the chequered flag with it is something not many can boast of in their careers. Mercedes, in all likelihood, would not have won the race in Turkey. Valterri Bottas showed that by finishing the race a lap down. It was only Lewis and his ability that made this possible for him. This is the gap that Lewis fills in that Mercedes. The change in regulations in 2022 can shrink Mercedes’ advantage. The 2022 regulations have two specific goals. The first is decreasing the budget for the teams and the second is bringing the grid closer when it comes to pace. With the changes in regulations, the role and the impact of drivers on the race is bound to increase. Now, for Mercedes to continue their reign at the top of the sport they would need someone of the caliber of Lewis to win those crucial races, to be consistent, and most importantly to help them win the titles. George Russell is yet to prove himself. Russell had a great weekend at Sakhir, he showed great pace and was able to display a great run of pace. But at the end of the day, it’s just one weekend. Can he do it race after race? Can he keep the pressure of Max Verstappen at bay all the time? Can he perform in all conditions? Can he win when the car is not up to the mark?

Roy Nissany will debut Williams’ 2021 Formula 1 machine during the upcoming pre-season test in Bahrain, as part of his role in the team’s academy programme. The Israeli is currently enjoying Formula 2 testing duties in Sakhir with DAMS and will remain out in Bahrain for the F1 tests, with Williams handing him a full day of track time in the FW43B on day 1. Former F2 racers Nicholas Latifi and George Russell will then step in on days 2 and 3. “We’ve split the test up, a driver each day,” said Williams Team Principal Simon Roberts. “It’s good for Roy Nissany to get that experience in the car. We can use the day with Roy to do stuff that then leaves the race drivers to focus on other parts of the programme.” Switching from Trident to DAMS, Nissany is hoping to challenge towards in the front in his third full campaign at this level.