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Four odd F1 predictions for the 2021 season

The 2021 season has got some living up to do to match the organised chaos of 2020, but with several scenarios that could happen by the end of the year - most notably in the driver market - it might manage it. Here's a look at some ways this season could surpass the COVID-affected 2020 campaign.

MORE THAN FIVE DRIVERS WIN A RACE

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, only five drivers won races, and two of those were probably shock results with Pierre Gasly's win in Monza and Sergio Perez auditioning for a Red Bull contract on the outer loop in Bahrain. So with a more standard calendar, why not get ambitious?

 

McLaren last won a race in Brazil in 2012. Photo by sergio souza on Unsplash
Sir Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas, and Max Verstappen were the other winners last season, but with the changed face of F1, there's no reason to think we'll get more than five this season. Maybe Perez shows what he can do in a top car? Ferrari, with two excellent drivers in Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, could compete again. Daniel Ricciardo moved to McLaren, who now have Mercedes power - the same combination present for their last Grand Prix win (Jenson Button, Brazil, 2012). Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel gets his hands on a Mercedes-powered car too… and who knows what a returning Fernando Alonso can do?


That's nine drivers, and excludes wildcards like Lando Norris and Lance Stroll, both of whom have proved they can be quick. No-one is expecting a Formula E style streak of nine races with nine different winners, but there's every reason to believe that the top step of the podium might be less predictable this time around.



WILLIAMS DO NOT FINISH LAST
Despite not getting a point at all last season, there are reasons for optimism at Williams. They know they have one extremely fast and well-regarded driver in George Russell, and Russell has a personal stake in making an impression this year with the impending contract chaos across the grid.

After scoring his first personal points while on work experience with Mercedes in Sakhir, Russell is in a brilliant place to score Williams' first points since Germany 2019. He's shown he is capable of racing near the front in an elite car, but perhaps more impressively, showed he was able to mix it in the Williams, cruising in 10th at Imola last season before crashing under safety car conditions with a dozen laps to go.


His teammate Nicolas Latifi finished less than a second off 10th in that race too. Latifi has finished 11th three times in F1 so far, closer to that elusive first point on more occasions than Russell has in the past.
They were last in 2020, but this could be a real season of progress.

FERRARI FINISH IN TOP FOUR OF THE CONSTRUCTORS'

Leclerc and Sainz is a really exciting driver combo, but it looks like Sainz is on a short leash while Ferrari waits for Mick Schumacher to throw the training wheels off. The Spanish racer is going to have fun in the meantime though, and showed his pace on occasions last year - his message to his engineer while chasing Gasly in Monza ("Tom, I want this win") and the early laps in Portugal showing that he's not afraid of a fight.
 

And that fight will push Leclerc onwards too. The Monegasque driver is probably Ferrari's number one and is still the golden child, even if Schumacher joined the team after a year, but Leclerc has race, if not title-contending potential over the course of a season with a decent car. And that can be emphasised on some tracks. It felt almost cruel to see him and Verstappen - two drivers tipped as the future of F1 - crash into each other in Sakhir. 

Both drivers are going to push each other to be better and Formula 1, not just Ferrari, will be better off as a result.

MICK SCHUMACHER GETS TO DOUBLE FIGURES
The Haas car is quite literally underdeveloped. Guenther Steiner has said they won't be developing it over the season as they look to the 2022 regulations… and they're coming off a slide from fifth to two consecutive ninth-placed seasons… and they only got three points last season… and they have two rookie drivers. Perhaps it's time to wake up and smell the <Redacted> energy drink.

But one of those drivers is Formula 2 champion Mick Schumacher. The German has a habit of picking up crucial points in lower positions to keep him ticking over. At PREMA last year, he hit a wonderful purple patch of podiums with five in a row, but he also supplemented that with some non-podium finishes, including some sevenths, sixths and a ninth.


From the graph, his first year in F3, he never finished above sixth, but when he finished, he was in that cluster. His second and final year in F3 was a lot more dominant. As he moved up to F2, and the title win in his second year, it wasn't wins that caught the eye, but his consistent ability to finish high. Several third and fourth places helped get him above his rivals.

As the learning curve turns steeper for him, points are going to be more difficult to pick up, especially in the 2021 Haas, but there's every chance he outshines his teammate and makes people take notice. Last season, Daniil Kyvat got 32 points and professional stand-in driver Nico Hülkenberg was directly below him on 10 in two appearances. Given a full season, Schumacher's got a good total to aim for.

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