The season is over and a news one awaits us but there is still F1 news to discuss over the long winter months so this is just a round up of the main news stories that have happened since the flag dropped in Abu Dhabi.
REDBULL CHOOSE PEREZ
Yes RedBull finally made a decision on their driver line up in the week following the final race of 2020 and it was really no surprise that Alex Albon was demoted by the team. He is still part of the team and will be test and reserve driver for the season but it is Sergio Perez that will partner Verstappen this year and so thankfully Perez’s time in the sport is not over. It is in my view a good choice for the team, Sergio is consistent, doesn’t make silly errors, is expert at managing tyre life and has enough experience that he shouldn’t end up getting mentally buried by the super fast Max Verstappen. It is a one year deal which makes sense as it if things don’t work out RedBull can assess Albon again or slot someone else in there.
Max has a history of destroying teammates (Ricciardo aside, but even he felt that he had to leave the team) so there is no doubt that Perez will have his work cut out but I think he has probably been through enough in his career to handle it and he is now a race winner of course so his confidence will be high. It would have been a tragedy if he had not been on the grid next season in my opinion so it is a big relief that he got the drive with a big team and I look forward too seeing how things go at RedBull.
Alon as well as being test and reserve will also compete in DTM this year with RedBull backing so he will still be getting plenty of competitive action which be good for him. Whether we see him in an F1 car again in the future who knows but at least RedBull will have someone who can step right in if either of the main drivers are effected by Covid.
DELAYED START TO THE SEASON
It was confirmed yesterday that revisions have been made to the 2021 schedule as a result of the ongoing Covid crisis. This was expected and it has been widely known talked about for a couple of months that the fiest race in Australia was in serious doubt. Melbourne will now be on the 21st of November ( subject to World Motorsport Council confirmation, but this is a formality) and the season will now begin in Bahrain under the lights on the 28th of March. China is at the moment not on the calendar and doesn’t appear tp have a chance of being slotted in any where as the diary is pretty tight as it is.
Imola will again host F1 as it will now be round two and round three, while not being officially confirmed is likely to be the Portuguese Grand Prix at Portimao so two of last years stand in races will be making a welcome return. The season will still finish in AbuDhabi but will now be a week later to accommodate the changes.
Pre- season testing has also been changed and will happen at Bahrain two weeks prior to that first race. This has been done to cut travel and make it easier for teams as they will not have to move everything from Barcelona to the middle east. This is a good move and I think will add an extra level of interest to the tests as they will be more representative of the what we can expect for the first race.
It was always very likely that the start of this year was going to see changes being made as the Covid situation is still ongoing and evolving. I would be amazed if there aren’t more changes needed as we go forward and the revised calendar that we saw yesterday may well not be the season we end up having. The races on street circuits such as Monaco, Azerbaijan, Canada and Singapore I would think are doubtful to happen as keeping the sport in its bubble will be difficult.
The sport is going to have to be very very reactive to what is happening around the world and it showed last year that it can deal with this challenging situation very well so whatever happens we will have a season of racing to look forward. Watch this space for more further developments.
CHANGE OF MANAGEMENT STRUCTURE AT ALPINE
Renault has officially become Alpine now and has announced a new management team which no longer features Cyril Abiteboul after Luca De Meo wanted to shake up the organization. Abiteboul had beejn expected to move to a different role within the Renault company but has now left altogether.
Laurent Rossi has become the new CEO of the Alpine brand and that means he has control over the F1 squad with Marcin Budkulski thought to become the team principle. Davide Brivio has also become part of the team after he recently left the Suzuki Moto GP team but I cant find info on what his job title will be. Brivio has a huge amount of experience of running successful teams in Moto GP and so it would seem to be a good appointment by Apline as they want to take the Enstone based team back to the front of the field.
HAMILTON CONCTRACT TALKS
Surprisingly talks between Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes have still not lead to a new contract being signed and it seems we may still be way off from that happening. Technically it doesn’t need to be done until pre-season begins but I would have thought both sides would prefer to have it sorted well before then. The issue probably comes down to money and the length of the deal. Hamilton reportedly wants $40.00 million dollars a year and Merc are reluctant to pay that much.
I would have thought that the salary cap that comes into effect next year more than likely is playing a part also as any contract signed prior to that has to be honored and so Merc are likely trying to prevent themselves having to pay a huge salary when other teams may not be. I am sure that a deal will be done as Lewis obviously wants to stay on and Merc get a lot of value from him being there but is seems that more time is needed. Hopefully there will be news on this soon but we will have to wait and see how it develops.
That is about it for the main news stories and there is unlikely to be much more in the short term so I will do another news round up blog next month as the new season starts to build up and when there is a bit more to say. Until then I will work on some blogs looing at F1 history so look out for some of them coming up.
My F1 talk 