Formula One: Testing set to begin in Bahrain

Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel at Aston Martin. Photo / Supplied

Caption photo 2: The 2021 Mercedes compared with the 2020 car. Photo / Supplied

Don Kennedy on Formula One


Testing in Bahrain for the 2021 F1 season starts on today and concludes on March 14.

All 10 teams contesting this year's championship have launched their new cars, most of them with online presentations, followed by pre-season publicity shakedowns on the track.

The new cars are reminiscent of last year's cars, given the major regulation changes that were meant to have been brought in this year were deferred until 2022 due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

There is always speculation ahead of pre-season testing as to which team may have done the best job in interpreting any new rules or regulations, but that won't really be a factor this year given the cars are mainly updated versions of the 2020 cars. Nevertheless, teams have naturally continued to introduce innovations and in the case of two of the top five teams from last year, that means a name change and substantial livery changes.

Racing Point was fourth in last year's championship but did win one race, thanks to Sergio Perez's victory in the Sikhar GP.

Perez has moved on to Red Bull and been replaced by four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel, who was sacked by Ferrari. Racing Point is now called Aston Martin. The colour of Vettel's racing overalls will change from red to green, while the car he will drive has gone from pink to something resembling British racing green.

The car will still have a Mercedes engine, but unlike last year, can no longer be referred to as the 'pink Mercedes' as it was last year when the team admitted it had unashamedly copied the design of the Mercedes car that has won the Constructors' title for the last seven consecutive years.

The other team that has undergone a substantial name and livery change is Renault, which will race as Alpine.

The yellow with black trims evident on the Renault cars that finished fifth in the 2020 championship has been replaced with a blue that reflects mountain colours you might expect to see on an alpine trek. The drivers' overalls change from yellow to blue.

Vettel had a torrid season in 2020, with just one podium, and a 13th place finish in the driver's championship.

Many commentators have noted that a former world champion doesn't forget how to drive but still needs to have the machinery at his disposal. Ferrari wasn't able to provide that last year, although the other Ferrari driver, Charles Leclerc, fared much better than Vettel, as Leclerc was eighth in the championship, with two podiums.

Vettel said at the launch of Aston Martin R21 that he is "thrilled" by the look of the car and is getting to know his new team.

"I'm thrilled, the car looks really fantastic," he told Motorsport.

"It's a completely new car for me, a different philosophy. I spent a lot of time with the engineers trying to familiarise myself with its characteristics, not only on the technical front but also studying the team's procedures, so I hope it doesn't take long to get to be perfectly in tune with the team."

"It's a journey I think everyone is very excited to embark on, but obviously we are not expecting to arrive tomorrow. But I'm just looking forward to being in the car and being myself, being happy and I think, having a good time, and if that's the case then the results will follow, whatever that means."

Vettel acknowledges that last year didn't go well for him and that he knows "it wasn't to the standards I mostly hold myself".

"I've never really cared what people think or say or write, so that's why I think it's important I'm at peace with that myself," he added.

Lance Stroll, the son of the team's majority shareholder billionaire Lawrence Stroll, will drive alongside Vettel.

Stroll Snr makes no apology for sticking with Lance while disposing of the services of Perez, even though the latter helped the team financially back in 2018 by paying the staff from his own pocket, and also last year winning in the Sikhar GP. That is because he believes in his son's ability.

"There are a lot of jealous people in the world and jealous people, who wish they were there in Lance's position, do and say silly things," Lawrence says.

"I don't pay much attention to it and neither does Lance. Do I think Lance is talented? I think he is immensely talented. I have no doubt he has demonstrated he has world championship blood in him.

"Everything is equal when you get to the ring and he showed that by putting it on pole in the rain in Turkey last year when the playing field was level. There are not many people who can do that."

Like father, like son, Lance also has been singing the praises of his father in building up the team since acquiring control two years ago.

"I don't know what people are seeing, but what I've seen myself over the last two years it's so incredible," Lance says. "It's completely different. A lot of people are the same, but we've had great additions over the last two years which is a huge help.

"When I arrived here in 2019, it was a team that was struggling financially. With the work my father did, he's given the tools to these incredibly talented people in the factory who have gone above and beyond for so long. Now I think we can move forward in earnest and exciting times are coming."

Aston Martin may be coming, but Mercedes remains the team to beat, and the new car it has unveiled looks as lethal as the 2020 title-dominating car was. The teams have a budget limit of $145 million this year, but team principal Toto Wolff claims if anything, that budget cap has made the team even better.

"You need to trim how you operate, but we believe this is a performance advantage because it has obliged us to rethink what we do and how we do it," Wolff says. "But the cost cap has brought that to a new level because we were not operating before within a regulatory cost restraint."

Wolff has also responded to the comment Lewis Hamilton recently made that he sees "no real need necessarily to plan too far ahead in the future", referring to his one-year contract renewal with the Mercedes team that has brought him so much success.

Asked if this suggested Hamilton was not as motivated as he has been in the past, Wolff dismissed the thought.

"No, no doubt about his commitment," Wolff said. "First of all, he enjoys racing a lot. We enjoy working with each other and we discussed that a lot, but he's absolutely right. Time's change.

"I think it's fair enough for a driver that has won seven championships to give himself the flexibility in his mind to decide what he wants to do in the future. Whether this is racing or outside of the circus."

In terms of a deal beyond 2021, Wolff says they "want to pick up discussions much earlier this year, to avoid a situation like we had in 2020, to run out of time and be in the uncomfortable position that there is no time left before the beginning of the season".

Wolff says they see Red Bull as their first competitor because that team has the same resources and is a very ambitious team.

"With Max [Verstappen], they have a driver who wants to follow in the footsteps of Lewis Hamilton and with Sergio Perez a driver who can also regularly score in the battle for the Constructors' Championship," Wolff stated. "That's why I see Red Bull as the main competitor."

He also says they can't write the others off.

"At Ferrari, it's not clear how much ground they can make up for this year, but the other three or four teams in midfield will make our lives a lot more difficult this year."

Those teams will read with some trepidation what Hywel Thomas, the Mercedes team's high performance powertrains boss, has to report about the power unit they have developed for 2021.

"We've continued the development of the technology in the power unit," Thomas confirmed. "That's a continuous process, and we feel like we've been able to take a step forward on that front again this year. The second area is reliability. We discovered some design issues last year, so we've been looking at those and introduced some changes to address them."

Hamilton finished all 16 races he started in 2020 and teammate Valterri Bottas had only one DNF (Did Not Finish), reliability doesn't seem to be something Mercedes has much to worry about. By contrast, Red Bull was second in the Constructors Championship despite Verstappen having five DNFs and his teammate Alex Albon, one.

Toto Wolff says: "We don't have any particular problems with the reliability of the power unit."

Wolff says for some years they had problems with engine cooling, but "I believe we have now made a big step forward in this direction."

If you have a car that is often one second per lap faster than your rivals and you make a "big step forward", it doesn't seem likely the other teams will close the performance gap. We only have to wait one week to find out if they can.