F1’s half-term report

1. A real title fight  

Tension and rivalry between world championship protagonists is something we have all dearly missed. It was fascinating during the Nico versus Lewis years as the friendship and camaraderie boiled over, leading to collisions and internal undercurrents that often made that partnership seem untenable for Mercedes, all the while entertaining those of us watching on.

Max Verstappen is a hard racer who really doesn’t give an inch more than he needs to. In his early years the Dutchman danced closer to the edge of fairness than anyone else on the grid, but recently he’s really reminded me of a young Fernando Alonso – firm but fair. The aggressive lunges in Imola and Barcelona were both brilliantly opportunistic and Lewis knows this could be the most intense on-track battle of his career since his first season in F1 against Fernando.

The smouldering rivalry erupted into an inferno at Silverstone when both drivers went for the same bit of tarmac at some terrifying speed, neither wanting to yield. The following fortnight of headlines and mudslinging were brilliant for keeping the sport at the forefront of everyone’s minds. The impression I got when leaving Budapest is that both drivers and teams still believed they were in the right, which is a sign neither of them will back down from the next move either.

Both are operating at an extremely high level and the first race in Austria summed up just how good they are compared to their teammates and the rest of the field. In the extreme heat of the Styrian GP, the cars would slide a bit on corner entry but both Lewis and Max could catch it with a gentle touch and still get the car to the apex at the right angle and exit the corner without over stressing the tyres. It may have been the dullest race of the year, but the brilliance of the top two made it that way and you can’t fault them for it.

2. The battle for pace

How refreshing it has been to arrive at a track and genuinely have no idea who is going to come out on top that weekend. In fact, even after free practice on a Friday we’re not really sure which of the two top teams is going to have the upper hand.

It became pretty clear during pre-season testing that Mercedes wasn’t going to have it all its own way, but too many times in the past we’ve arrived at the start of the season and seen other teams show flashes of speed in testing, only to flatter to deceive when the serious business started.

Not until qualifying in Bahrain did we actually believe Red Bull was properly in this fight and since then Mercedes has clawed its way back into contention on a regular basis. There were weekends such as Baku and Austria where clearly Red Bull had the upper hand, but then in Budapest it was Mercedes who had the quicker car.

Both teams will head into the summer break with reasons to be optimistic for the second half of the season. Red Bull will be adding up the unfortunate points lost in Baku for Max and the first corner incident in Budapest that wiped out both cars, not to mention that weekend at Silverstone. Knowing it should be much further ahead in the standings will give Red Bull real encouragement. The team will be aware it only needs to do more of the same and hope for better luck.

Mercedes, meanwhile, will be delighted to have stopped the Red Bull steamroller and be heading to the August break knowing it had the fastest car at the last GP (as the saying goes, you’re only as good as your last race) and, crucially, lead both world championships.

3. Norris versus Ricciardo 

Lando Norris has been the standout performer of the season so far, outside of the title contenders. It’s a very different Lando I’ve seen this year. Gone are the jokey comments on the radio. Instead, there’s a degree of maturity combined with a working environment at McLaren that has unlocked some serious speed. Despite the fact he went wide on his quali lap at Imola by a few centimetres, I would still argue that drive was the best single weekend performance of any driver this season.

I’ll be honest: when I heard that Daniel Ricciardo was going to join McLaren, I thought Lando would be in trouble. But something just isn’t clicking for Daniel at the Woking team and it seems to be on corner entry for the medium and slow speed stuff. In high speed corners he’s right there with Lando. At Silverstone, where there are only two big braking zones, the McLarens were separated by mere hundredths of a second. 

We all know Ricciardo is a top quality driver and I can’t wait to see how he digs himself out of this hole.

4. Ferrari’s resurgence 

Last season was absolutely dreadful for Ferrari. The well documented ‘fuel flow’ saga of late 2019 and its fallout clearly cost the team performance throughout 2020. I was concerned the team would spiral out of control like it did in the early Nineties, but actually it seems as though the organisation has more strength in depth and less political drama about it than it did back then. That has allowed Mattia Binotto and Laurent Mekies to lead something of a revival on track. 

Ferrari has a top quality driver line-up, which clearly helps. Charles Leclerc’s pole position laps in Monaco and Baku were sensational, as were his weekend performances in Silverstone and Spain. The pressure of being a new Ferrari driver alongside an incumbent star like Charles is a very tough job, but Carlos Sainz has adapted very quickly to life in Maranello. On the whole, 11 races in, his average qualifying deficit to Charles is only 0.117, which is seriously impressive when you consider he’s had to learn all about a new team and power unit. More podiums are on the cards later this season for both Ferrari men.

5. Calendar variety 

A sign of these strange times is that we still don’t know how many races there will be this season and where they will take place. There are strong rumours of Japan being cancelled and a double header in Austin, Texas, taking place instead, while Brazil and Turkey still seem to be going forward, despite being on the red list – that seems very odd to me. Either way, we should still have a fantastic mix of races and tracks for the rest of the year.

Seeing the fans back in the grandstands at Silverstone made the whole British GP weekend feel like the kind of F1 event we know, love and have missed. In this bizarre and worrying world we’ve been living in, here was a sense of normality. 

I can’t wait to see what the crowds at Spa and Zandvoort will be like as Max has two ‘home’ races back-to-back with a realistic chance of winning both. The track layout in Saudi Arabia looks like it could be as entertaining as Baku and the modified layout of the Abu Dhabi circuit, which I’ve been consulting on, should hopefully make it a more enjoyable place for the drivers to settle the title battle come December.