The driver gap Aston Martin must address in F1 2021

Lance Stroll and Sebastian Vettel are set to make history in the 2021 Formula 1 season.

Given the pace of the largely carried over RP20 car they will race in the upcoming campaign, they are surely certain to bring home points for their rebranded squad. The first points finish of the season will give the Aston Martin moniker its first ever in F1 - following the sportscar manufacturer's limited entry into the world championship six decades ago.

But the true measure of Stroll and Vettel's success in 2021 will, of course, come in the final points totals. And in 2020 this was costly for Aston - in its previous guise as Racing Point.

The fluctuating and fascinating battle to scoop the lucrative third place in the constructors' championship behind the reduced 'Class A' squads was of course won by McLaren. Given the designs used last year are currently being adapted to the slightly altered technical rules for 2021, this points to another season of close competition in F1's crowded midfield.

As Racing Point, Aston missed out on winning this battle by just seven points in 2020 - counting the cost of the 15 points it was docked following the furore regarding its car design process (which of course helped the team produce F1's third fastest car overall last year, and therefore be in the battle for P3 in the first place), results lost to unfortunate reliability, as well as its drivers getting caught up in incidents throughout the season.

PLUS: How McLaren triumphed in F1 2020's best battle

But, apart from points lost to punishment, Racing Point's 2020 fortunes were simply the results of going racing. What happens on bad days matters as much as when everything finishes perfectly - the cliched aim to 'maximise' what's on offer is oft repeated for a reason.

And this is where one particular gap in Racing Point's 2020 results stands out. In the final standings, the difference between Red Bull-bound Sergio Perez and Stroll was seven places - between the Mexican driver's P4 behind Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen, and the Canadian's P11.

That gap was the same at Renault - between Daniel Ricciardo in fifth and Esteban Ocon's 12th. This goes some way to explaining how McLaren (where the gap between the drivers was just three spots between Carlos Sainz Jr's sixth and Lando Norris in P9) beat both its closest rivals to that much-prized third place.

Again, the fluctuations of fortune matter. Perez's magnificent Sakhir Grand Prix win boosted his final points total, but he was bitterly unfortunate to lose a certain podium the week before, which had a knock-on impact in his Abu Dhabi GP DNF (and the big element of luck of winning a race Mercedes had been dominating shouldn't be ignored either), as well as missing two races to COVID-19. But, had things worked out slightly differently for Sainz, he possibly could've been the driver finishing fourth and taking a maiden F1 win in 2020...

While the impact of luck in sport can be endlessly debated, the gap between team-mates matters in F1. Had Alex Albon been generally closer to Verstappen (and their final standings gap was four places), it stands to reason that he would not have lost his drive to Perez for 2021.

So, if it wants to secure the overall results its car potential suggests is possible, Aston also needs to stop a points gap between its drivers forming this year and, naturally, get them as high up the points table as possible.

"I still had that kind of COVID hangover for a couple of races in Portugal and Imola. And that was actually really tough. I lost a lot of muscle, there was no training so it was a tough comeback" Lance Stroll

Vettel arrives as the newcomer. Expectations are both lower and higher in his case given the new environment he will have to adapt to (made harder by the restrictions of the pandemic), balanced against his pedigree as a four-time world champion. Stroll is the incumbent, but it was his final placing versus Perez in 2020 that stands out (just as Ocon's did with Ricciardo).

PLUS: How Vettel's Ferrari mission ended on a sour note

It was a curious fourth F1 campaign for the 22-year-old. He was occasionally brilliant - such as his third place in qualifying in Hungary (where he went on to finish fourth), and that pole and first half of the race in Turkey. His drive to fourth in Spain was also very well executed (boosted by Perez's penalty for ignoring blue flags). But his glittering results had negative accompaniments.

His third place at Monza probably should've been much better given he took the red flag restart second behind the soon-to-be-penalised Hamilton, losing out to eventual winner Pierre Gasly and Sainz with a slow getaway. And his third place in the Sakhir race meant he finished adrift of Perez, who had been knocked down to last on the opening lap in the clash with Charles Leclerc.

These results bookend what Stroll calls a "bumpy ride" between last season's Mugello and Turkey races.

In the former, a high-speed puncture meant he crashed heavily when running well in fourth, while in the latter he fell from his early heights to come home ninth - the team later claiming front wing damage had hampered him after his second stop. He too was knocked out of contention by Leclerc on an opening lap - in Russia, which put him out entirely - after which he missed the Eifel GP with an illness that was later diagnosed as COVID. On his return, he clashed with Norris before retiring at Portimao, then knocked over a mechanic during his third stop in a messy Emilia Romagna race where he finished 13th.

"I still had that kind of COVID hangover for a couple of races in Portugal and Imola," Stroll tells Autosport.

"And that was actually really tough. I was out of the car for like a month from Russia until Portugal. I lost a lot of muscle, there was no training. So it was a tough comeback but, once I got back into the groove after Imola, in Turkey that was a great weekend for me. Since then, I [was] back home on my game."

Stroll says his return to the cockpit from illness left him with "a bit of a headache" and "a little bit tired, a little bit sluggish" - not quite himself. But he doesn't attribute the incidents in Portugal and Imola to the after-effects of COVID, saying "unfortunate circumstances can happen in any race".

Given the mix of highs and lows he encountered in 2020, still his best season in F1 to date, it's no wonder Stroll calls the season just gone "a year of missed opportunity". But both he and Aston can't afford another one in 2021. If its car's pace holds up into the new season, the team should again be targeting third place in the constructors' championship - as well as trying to get among Mercedes and Red Bull on the podium where it can.

The decision to base its car design on Mercedes' winning formula paid off handsomely for Racing Point in 2020 - with Stroll calling the RP20 the best car he's driven in F1 "by far".

"I knew that it was a big step forward compared to [2019]," he adds. "We just have a lot more downforce on the car and that makes all the difference really - it's just having more downforce.

"I proved a lot really to mainly myself and I just answered a lot of questions that I've been asking myself in the last few seasons" Lance Stroll

"If you get a good car, you get good results. And then you just build confidence from there. And I think sometimes when I was in a bad car, if anything it kind of backfired on me. Especially in the beginning of your career, when you're in a bad car and you don't know what it's like to be in a good car until you sit in one, you kind of start to question what your ability is like and if it is as good as the others that are in good cars because you just don't know what a good car feels like.

"And I think [in 2020] I proved a lot to myself. I proved a lot really to mainly myself and I just answered a lot of questions that I've been asking myself in the last few seasons up until I had the opportunity to sit in a car that really performs."

Sometimes in F1, when teams and drivers find themselves in unfamiliar territory, strange things happen - just look at the mistakes Mercedes made at Monza and in the Sakhir GP last year. So perhaps Racing Point's 2020 will pay off as a real learning year for Aston.

Now, with a driver that has just silenced a questioning inner voice and another who knows what it takes to succeed at F1's highest level, it must take those lessons onboard and write a new chapter for the brand's motorsport legend.