The tight battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton will likely continue in Saudi Arabia
Don Kennedy on Formula One
This weekend's penultimate round of the 2021 Formula 1 championship will be held at a new Jeddah Comiche Circuit in Saudi Arabia. Carson Tilke, the son of Hermann Tilke who has designed most of the modern F1 circuits, says the 6.174km long track will be ready.
But has admitted it has been a challenge to complete the circuit in eight months.
"It was really one of our most ambitious projects with the most time pressure to really make this happen in eight months but, in the end, it's really amazing what's there now and everyone is excited for the next race," Tilke said.
Described as a street circuit, the high-speed layout will feature 27 corners and possibly three DRS zones, with lots of walls. Momentum and straight-line speed would seem to favour defending world champion Lewis Hamilton, whose victories in the last two grands prix in Brazil and Qatar reduced Max Verstappen's championship lead to just 8 points with 52 points available to the driver who wins in Saudi Arabia and the last race in Abu Dhabi.
"It could go either way," Tilke says. "On the one hand it's very fast, so the engine is important, but on the other hand it's a lot of corners. This is also important, so to be honest, I'm not sure, we will see."
Hamilton used a new Mercedes engine to win the Sao Paulo Grand Prix despite starting from 10th on the grid. His car was half a second quicker than Verstappen's Red Bull, who put up a spirited defence, including taking Hamilton and himself off the track at one point, which Mercedes boss Toto Wolff felt deserved a penalty, Hamilton easily overtook Verstappen on the second attempt and raced away to victory.
It was Verstappen's turn to take a penalty in the next race at Qatar, a new circuit for F1, but his penalty was for not slowing down for a double-yellow waved flag on the home straight, even though the dashboard on Verstappen's car didn't show the yellow flag, DRS was still available and the marshal had taken it upon himself to wave the yellow flag.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner got an official FIA warning for referring to the marshal as a "rogue marshal". FIA race director Michal Masi was furious at Horner for criticising marshals given they are essentially needed volunteers, and Horner had to apologise and acknowledge that marshals do a wonderful job.
Wolff of course took great delight in seeing the boss of his rival team in trouble, even though after Hamilton's penalty in Brazil for having an illegal rear wing led to Wolff saying "F**k them all" to Hamilton after his driver had finished 5th in the sprint qualifying race despite the penalty. A good example of the pot calling the kettle black, given Wolff was able to publicly tell the race stewards, or the FIA, or both, where to go, yet Horner wasn't allowed to criticise the marshal who exceeded his authority with huge consequences for Verstappen.
McLaren boss Andreas Seidl, though, is concerned that comments from both Wolff and Horner recently are bringing the sport into disrespect.
"If you watch everything which is ongoing at the moment, it's obviously clear there is a lot at stake and is different to the battles we are all in further back, which is great to a certain degree for the fans, for the show," he suggests.
"But I definitely think some of the comments we have seen in recent weeks are definitely not something I could imagine would come from us in this situation. I think it is very important - and it doesn't matter if you are fighting for wins or you are last - that you always keep the respect for your competitor, for the FIA, for Formula 1."
In the Qatar race, Hamilton was able to use the engine he had replaced for Brazil without incurring a penalty because the old engine is still in the team's pool of engines. Arguably a team shouldn't be allowed to replace a relatively healthy engine to gain a power boost, but that is the loophole Mercedes exploited, as of course could Red Bull if they wanted to.
For the Saudi race, Mercedes has confirmed Hamilton will use the engine he won with in Brazil, an engine described unwittingly as a "rocket engine" by Red Bull adviser Helmet Marko.
But Marko says he is not worried, because the engine advantage may be nullified by the fact that Mercedes can no longer use its flexible rear wing, and also the Jeddah circuit is a street circuit, which Verstappen should like, given it has similarities to the Baku circuit, where he would have won the Azerbaijan GP earlier in the year had he not had a tyre explode with four laps remaining.
"We saw in Qatar that Hamilton's speed advantage on the straights in Qatar was no longer that great and was more or less within the normal range," Marko points out.
But worryingly for Red Bull, Hamilton won that race with ease, because even though Verstappen, who started 6th on the grid and was up to second place after four laps, made little or no gain on Hamilton thereafter.
The scenario for Verstappen is clear. Win one of the last two races and finish second or third in the other, and he will be champion for the first time. For Hamilton, if he wins the last two races, he will be champion for an eighth time, no matter what Verstappen does. Four-time world champion Alain Prost, an adviser to the Alpine team, says: "We are very lucky to witness this championship this year with two great drivers."
"Everyone asks me about Ayrton [Senna] and myself, but if you remember at the time we had five or six years' difference. We were talking already about the difference of generations."
"Now they have 12, 13 years difference so it's a big gap, but you almost have a young guy but with already a lot of experience, a lot of speed, and Lewis - we all know what he has done." "In fact, I was thinking that for Lewis, he's very lucky to have Max at the moment pushing him, because when you have won seven times the championship and more than 100 wins, what do you want to achieve? What is true is whoever it will be, Max or Lewis, we will have a fantastic world champion this year, which is the most important thing."
The F1 teams will head to Saudi Arabia with the sad news that Sir Frank Williams, the founder of the Williams Team that bears his name, has died aged 79. Tributes have been flowing in for Sir Frank who first started work as a travelling grocery salesman, before becoming a mechanic and driver, who eventually got enough money together to form Frank Williams Racing cars in 1966 and, when he joined up with Patrick Head in 1977, Williams Grand Prix Engineering was formed.
The team's first win came with Clay Regazzoni in the 1979 British GP at Silverstone, and the first Drivers' and Constructors' championships in 1980, when Australian Alan Jones won the driver's title. Between 1981 and 1977 the team won six Drivers' championships and eight Constructors' titles, with a total of 114 grand prix victories, the last one being in 2012 when Pastor Maldonado won the Spanish GP. In addition to Jones, Keke Rosberg, Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell, Alain Prost, Damon Hill and Jacques Villeneuve all won championships with Williams. Tragically, Ayrton Senna died driving a Williams at Imola in 1994.
Tragedy struck Sir Frank in March 1986 when he lost control of the car he was driving in the South of France with renowned F1 journalist Peter Windsor as a passenger. Windsor was unhurt and was able to get Frank out of the car, but he had suffered spinal fractures and would be a tetraplegic the rest of his life. Despite having to use a wheelchair, Sir Frank refused to let his handicap stop him running the team, which he finally handed over to his daughter Claire the same year his team last won an F1 race. He will be greatly missed, but hopefully his legendary contribution to F1 will continue with the team always known as Williams, even though ownership has changed hands, just as McLaren has kept Bruce McLaren's name to the fore.
Given that Verstappen and Hamilton have finished first and second in 12 of the 21 grand prix held this year, it is fairly likely they will finish 1-2 in Saudi Arabia. The question of course is which way around? The momentum is with Hamilton as he has the faster car and has been unstoppable the last two races. But Verstappen is a feisty competitor and the 24-year-old has had 139 F1 starts, having been in F1 since he was 17. He is ready to become world champion, and, with 19 wins, will want to shake off holding the record of most grand prix victories without a championship. That could all change this weekend, and you can bet the spirit of Sir Frank will be felt as the battle resumes.