The stark challenges Vettel’s new start now faces

“It could be worse,” says Sebastian Vettel, just as 2021 Formula 1 pre-season testing ends. He’s right, of course, but the start of Aston Martin’s second F1 era got off to a pretty inauspicious start. It’s currently impossible to say exactly where the team sits in the latest pecking order because it completed so little running over the Bahrain test, but this was the team that had the third-fastest car in 2020. And, thanks to the carryover requirements of the new campaign, much of that package remains in action in 2021.  

But a second impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was the 50% reduction in pre-season testing time. That had already made Vettel’s task of getting up to speed with a new team difficult, even before Aston lost almost nearly a third of the three-day test to a gearbox problem on day two, and then a turbo-boost-pressure issue as the final hours approached, both dramas occurring during Vettel’s allocated running.  

There are four other established F1 drivers making new starts in 2021, but of Daniel Ricciardo, Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso and Carlos Sainz Jr, only the last-named encountered a visible on-track reliability issue during testing (and his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc caused one of the event’s three red flags due to his squad spotting a telemetry combustion anomaly, ordering him to pull over), with his transmission problem late on the final day.

Vettel, alone of the ‘new’ starters, and who is with a new team for the first time since 2015, lost serious track time. He ended up with the lowest lap count of all the 2021 race drivers, on 117 (AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly led the way on 237). And, of course, his 2020 campaign was worse, probably the weakest of his 13-year F1 career so far.

“One hundred laps!” replies Vettel when asked how far behind he is compared to where he’d expected to finish pre-season testing. “Obviously I would have liked to just get more mileage. That’s the main thing.  

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin 2021 Bahrain F1 test

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

“The last day [before the turbo problem struck] was very busy and I tried to make use of the track time, which I felt I did, and it was very good for me and I learned a lot of things. So now it’s obviously [important] to remember all these things, give feedback and remember going forward. This is the key. I’m just short on mileage, and with that we have a lot of tyre sets that we didn’t use because we didn’t run.

"Overall, it’s probably 100 laps that I’m short of, then probably something similar for Lance [Stroll] – we both didn’t get what we wanted. But it’s not a big deal, it’s what it is, and we’ve got to move on.” 

Vettel’s assertion is understandable, especially in the context of Aston’s strength as Racing Point last year. But when considering the reduced pre-season, it piles outside pressure upon how successful the latest chapter in his career will ultimately be. Coping with that understanding is now part of Vettel’s 2021, but before then there are more fundamental tasks he has to tick off as he settles into life with his new squad.  

“[It’s about] just getting to know the people,” he explains. “It’s one thing to understand what they mean, [when we have] lots of different things to talk about. Then [getting to know] the car and how the steering feels different, because it’s a different unit. Obviously, every F1 car has power steering, but every power steering is set up slightly differently, and gives you a different impression. Ultimately when you drive you have the wheel in your hands and that’s the feedback you get.” 

Then there’s Aston’s power and aerodynamic philosophy, both of which are different to what he previously experienced at Ferrari and before that at Red Bull. Vettel refuses to be drawn into comparisons between the feel of the Mercedes powerplant, which has dominated F1 since his own championship-crushing era was ended in 2014, “out of respect to different manufacturers”.  

On the aero side, Vettel is again naturally wary of disclosing too many details, but his fate is now tied to the low-rake concept Mercedes has pursued, and to which Racing Point/Aston successfully switched last year. To the team’s credit, it navigated the switch to a completely new design philosophy without major drama and reaped its benefits. 

“It’s been very interesting to me, let’s put it that way,” Vettel says, coyly. “It’s not like there’s only one thing. It’s not like you have a high-rake car and you just drop the rake, and you are in a Mercedes, and [if] you are in a Mercedes and you increase the rake, and you drive a Red Bull. It’s not like that. It’s much, much more complex. There’s a lot more elements that have to come together.” 

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin 2021 Bahrain F1 test

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

These elements could well be a central point to how the first-season story of the Aston/Vettel combo plays out. This is because of the theory that the 2021 rear-floor rule changes have possibly hurt Mercedes’ low-rake concept more than the high-rake approach pioneered at Red Bull and widely adopted elsewhere. The Black Arrows were rather all over the place when it came to rear grip during testing, and although Aston’s reliability problems meant it did not do any real performance running – Stroll’s 1m30.460s on the soft C5 tyres ended up as the ninth-best lap across the 10 teams as a result – the negative impact on low-rake design theory could well apply to Aston too.  

PLUS: How Red Bull won F1 2021 pre-season testing

Then there’s the new Pirelli rubber. Since the Italian company became F1’s sole tyre supplier in 2011, the championship has been dominated by two drivers: Lewis Hamilton and Vettel. The new rubber is heavier and requires additional understanding as a result – a factor that adds to the piling up of costs from Aston’s testing time loss.   

As a champion in F1’s Pirelli era, Vettel has long since proved that he can cope with the challenges posed by the varying constitutions of the fragile rubber. But, along with his need for additional understanding of Aston’s steering approach, and getting to know the low-rake concept and Mercedes engine, all of these factors blend together concerning the ultimate F1 differentiator: pace.  

In his final year at Ferrari, Vettel failed to make it through to Q3 at 14 races, ending the year 13-4 down against Leclerc in the squad’s intra-team qualifying competition. He played down the impact of Ferrari’s rear-handling deficiencies at the Aston team launch earlier this month, but it was clear that Vettel could not match Leclerc’s car confidence across the campaign. Therefore, it would be logical to expect the handling impact of the rear-downforce cuts to be something he must overcome if he is to shine again against the clock – and let’s not forget that this is F1’s fourth-highest pole position scorer – at his new squad.  

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

Aston must also now address a growing concern over its recent reliability, considering Perez suffered two costly retirements either side of his Sakhir Grand Prix win (where Stroll was third) as 2020 ended. But however tough its Bahrain test was, it has so far been impressed by its new hire. Vettel started work with his new squad as soon as 2021 got under way, quickly pointing out ways to improve his in-car comfort, but both sides know the more complex adaptations will naturally take longer.  

“He’s settling in well with the team,” says team boss Otmar Szafnauer. “His feedback is very detailed and very precise. The engineers get very good feedback from him. He’s got a great work ethic and he pursues every single little bit of performance that we can go after. For that reason, it’s evident why he’s won all those races and championships.” 

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin 2021 Bahrain F1 test

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The Aston/Vettel story is off to a less-than-ideal start, but that doesn’t necessarily diminish its potential given the Racing Point package’s previous pace and his immense experience. After a bumpy start to life in green, Vettel the leader will need to help boost the recovery once the real racing starts. 

PLUS: The logic underpinning Stroll’s Aston F1 ambition

“I’m not too preoccupied,” Vettel concludes on Aston’s testing issues. “Maybe it’s the age, maybe it’s the experience, but probably 10 years ago I would finally panic now. But then again, if I were to panic now, would it help? Probably not. We still got some running. And for me the laps [in the morning on the final day] were super-useful. So, it could be worse. It could be better, but it could be worse.  

“It’s about remaining calm, doing one thing at a time and moving forward when it’s time to. Even the people that have no trouble at all and did lots of laps [in testing], I don’t think you can acquire all the information about the new cars, the new tyres, the changes over the winter that might have been on top of that, in just one and a half days in the car. It will naturally take a little bit of time to get up to speed, but for sure there’s some people who need more time, some less.” 

Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin 2021 Bahrain F1 test

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

How Aston’s AMR21 compares to Racing Point’s RP20  

Since Vettel has replaced Perez in Aston Martin’s line-up for 2021, and Nico Hulkenberg’s super-sub skills have not yet been called upon, there’s only one driver who can compare the green team’s new machine with the ‘pink Mercedes’ it ran in 2020. Lance Stroll is about to embark upon his third season racing with the rebranded squad and, thanks to the changes on the other side of the Aston garage, he’s uniquely placed to comment on how the AMR21 compares to the RP20.

Due to the windy conditions in Bahrain throughout testing, Stroll says it was “hard to get a good read on the balance”, but he remains optimistic.

“The car does feel good,” he adds. “We did lose a bit of [downforce] load for sure, so did everyone with the floor cut etc. But the balance felt good and yeah, I was comfortable in the car. It’s hard to really get a proper feel for some of the changes we’ve made to the rear end. With these 20-25km/h winds [in testing], where you feel the headwind, you just feel a lot of grip, and where you feel the tailwind you feel no grip.”

Given the similar aerodynamic philosophies the Aston design shares with Mercedes’, it will be interesting to see if both teams are visibly struggling for rear-end grip – as the world champion team was throughout testing – when the racing gets under way. If that does prove to be the case, and Aston’s lack of qualifying simulations in testing means this is difficult to predict, then Stroll and Vettel will have to work together to help improve the situation.

“He’s very knowledgeable when it comes to the behaviour of the car, what he wants from the car, and just his comments are very wise,” Stroll says of his new team-mate. “He has a lot of experience and is a very talented driver. It’s still early days though. We’ll probably be able to relate to each other’s comments and give our feedback and have a much better idea about what we’re both talking about.”

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin 2021 Bahrain F1 test

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images