Formula 1 is tedious these days, right? It’s always just a procession of cars that can’t overtake one another miles behind Sir Lewis Hamilton in his untouchable Mercedes-AMG. Actually, popular though that view may be, it’s not true.
Yes, Britain’s finest cruised to a seventh title, but last season also gave rise to some fantastic races, shock results and brilliant performances from exciting new talents, and there’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy more of that in 2021. To make things even better, there are scheduled to be six extra races and a much greater variety of tracks after last year’s pandemic disruption.
This isn’t just our view but also that of Jolyon Palmer and Jack Nicholls, who travel the world covering every grand prix for BBC Radio 5 Live. Palmer raced in F1 himself in 2016 and 2017 for Renault, while Nicholls is a lifelong motorsport obsessive. The two men have known each other for a decade now, so it’s no surprise that they’re absolutely candid when they sit down (virtually) with Autocar to discuss why you should be tuning in when the 2021 season starts this weekend.
Can anyone stop Hamilton from winning the title?
JN “This is the last year of the current rules, and Mercedes-AMG are so far ahead and have the best driver again, but you would like to think that having Sergio Pérez alongside Max Verstappen this year will allow Red Bull to challenge a bit more and win a few more races. They were impressive when they won the last race of 2020 and are quite bullish – although for four seasons they’ve finished strongly, then not been there at the start of the next.”
Will the updated cars and new budget cap significantly affect any of the teams?
JP “The changes to the cars are small. Maybe Mercedes won’t be able to find that much on the car and we’ll start the year with a really close Verstappen-Hamilton fight, but history tells us that they do keep finding things on the car.”
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Almost as irrelevant as comments about "proper engines"....