How F1 2021's other new tracks will impact the Verstappen-Hamilton title fight

This time one year ago, a virtuoso performance from Lewis Hamilton sealed his seventh Formula 1 world title. In 2021, his most recent stunning victory in last weekend’s Sao Paulo Grand Prix – surely only vying with Silverstone 2008 as his best ever so far – kept his title battle with Max Verstappen close.

Back in 2020, F1 was leaving Turkey ahead of a triple-header in the Middle East to close out its pandemic-altered schedule.

It was different, but familiar – with Bahrain and Abu Dhabi the host countries for the final dead rubbers. The Sakhir GP’s alternate layout from the regular Bahrain track added variety, as did Hamilton’s unfortunate COVID-enforced absence setting up a showdown between Valtteri Bottas and George Russell at Mercedes.

But while F1 can only hope there is no repeat of a late-season enforced absence among its title contenders (or any other driver for that matter), the different races ending the 2021 campaign are throwing up plenty of unknowns with which the teams must grapple.

F1 heads to Doha for the inaugural Qatar GP this weekend – a late replacement for Australia – before making its first visit to Saudi Arabia. The number of countries using the championship’s profile for their own ends continues to widen (and yes, the UK can be included on that list considering its government’s actions to place Silverstone on the COVID-social-research pilot scheme, just before lockdown restrictions were basically fully lifted, to showcase the success of its vaccination programme in Brexit’s context). Sick of sport and politics mixing? Well, they always do…

Focusing on the sporting impact of new events at the climax of a championship, and F1 is on rather unfamiliar ground this year.

Taking the world championship’s formation in 1950 as an outrageously convenient starting point, 2021 is the first time since the championship’s infancy that three ‘new’ venues will close out a campaign. That claim has a special designation because Abu Dhabi is of course not a new venue – instead the circuit has significantly altered its layout to improve the racing spectacle ahead of its 13th F1 race.

Changes to the Yas Marina circuit have been introduced to improve the quality of racing

Photo by: Yas Marina Circuit

But if we consider wholly new layouts or new venues entirely, as is happening with Qatar and Saudi Arabia, then F1 must go back to 1984 to find the last time such fresh events helped close out a season. That year featured the Nurburgring GP layout’s first appearance, and that must be considered a new track that’s adjacent to an old one. In 1984, Estoril was the season finale, where Niki Lauda sealed the title with second place behind team-mate and title rival Alain Prost.

F1 has to go back a further 25 years for another instance of new venues appearing late in a title fight, to 1959. That year, at the new Sebring finale, starting calamity contact between the Ferraris meant contender Tony Brooks made a precautionary pitstop and finished third, while Stirling Moss retired from the lead with gearbox damage. All that left Jack Brabham to take crown despite pushing his Cooper-Climax over the line after it had run out of fuel.

The year before, 1958 ended with new races in Portugal and Morocco, either side of Monza’s ninth world championship F1 event. In the finale, Moss dominated in his Vanwall but Ferrari’s Phil Hill stepped aside for team-mate Mike Hawthorn to take second and the title.

"[Qatar is] going to be difficult because I think there will be a lot of split in strategy in terms of where people run the downforce – because the straight is so long, but you’ve got so many corners where you need that downforce"George Russell

Seven years before that, the second world championship ended with Juan Manuel Fangio sealing his first crown with the original Nurburgring and the Pedralbes street circuit as two of the three final rounds (Monza again sandwiched in the middle). In Barcelona, Fangio won after Ferrari’s wheel size alterations contributed to its three-race win-streak ending and Alberto Ascari missing out.

High-profile crashes, poor reliability, team-mate interventions and set-up choices going wrong – all that has happened so far in 2021 too.

And now Red Bull and Mercedes head to this year’s other two new races, as F1 finally treads onto lots of unfamiliar ground at a pivotal point in a campaign once again. Now that the new races are arriving, we can assess their likely impact on the 2021 world title with greater confidence.

Qatar looks to favour Red Bull, given it is mainly a mix of high and medium speed corners, where the RB16B excels. And although there is a long main straight, that won’t necessarily mean Mercedes can stay in the game with awesome straightline speed – a la Interlagos.

Losail International Circuit aerial view

The teams and drivers have arrived in Qatar this week with varying degrees of experience at the Losail track. Sergio Perez won here in GP2 Asia back in 2009, but claims “I don’t remember anything!” of it, while Charles Leclerc hasn’t even had the chance to drive it on Ferrari’s simulator as the model “arrived” after he’d left for Austin and the run of races that followed.

George Russell has sampled it on Williams’ sim, saying it reminds him most of Mugello – another MotoGP venue F1 has made an unexpected visit to in the last two years (this will be its only race at Losail, with a new circuit to be constructed for use from 2023 onwards, post-next year’s football world cup).

The teams are supplied with relevant layout data to build their sim models, but the reality of the track surface and its likely critical impact on tyre performance will only have been fully revealed once they arrived in Doha. It is understood that the Losail track surface hasn’t been replaced since it was constructed in 2004.

“Mugello is more undulating, Qatar is flat, but in terms of the corner layouts – the lefts and rights – it’s got, in terms of the speed profile, hints of Mugello,” says Russell.

“There’s lots of medium speed corners in fourth/fifth gear. There’s only one slow-speed corner, which I think [means its] going to be really interesting, and then it follows onto a really long straight. It’s going to be difficult because I think there will be a lot of split in strategy in terms of where people run the downforce – because the straight is so long, but you’ve got so many corners where you need that downforce.”

Given its sensational power display on Hamilton’s car in Brazil, it seems logical that the very high-speed Jeddah street layout will favour Mercedes. Verstappen is confident that the “dramatic” performance gains of his rival’s latest internal combustion engine will “slowly be a bit more normal” and Red Bull was dominant in Baku – but that was rather a long time ago now, before Mercedes’ critical Silverstone aerodynamic upgrade arrived.

Whatever the reality, the team on pole will gain a major advantage, given the narrow confines of the circuit. But with 27 corners and such high-speed being threaded through the walls, crashes and resulting safety cars will surely mean big strategy calls become just as pivotal in deciding the outcome.

Jeddah Street Circuit overview

Photo by: Uncredited

And then there’s Abu Dhabi. With the approach to first long back straight changed, the series of 90-degree turns at the end of the second replaced by a long, fast left-hander and the corners running under the track’s giant hotel widened, the previous formbook is rather thrown out.

In any case Red Bull had just ended Mercedes’ six-year run of wins with Verstappen’s walk-off triumph there last year. Just how much the new corners change the pecking order is the big unknown, but getting the tyres working will remain a serious challenge – and this undid Mercedes last year.

But if the title contenders arrive at the last race having won one more race each in front of the other (leaving the ridiculous fastest lap point out for the sake of simplicity), Verstappen could afford to not win the finale so long as he finished on the podium, assuming a Hamilton victory there.

That again highlights just how much both need Valtteri Bottas and Perez to get among the top positions at the upcoming new races, which if they do will also pin extra importance on the fastest lap bonuses banked so far in 2021.

All of the expected title-fight-climax pressures are building on the four drivers at F1’s two leading squads. But they’ve now got to cope with them on unfamiliar ground, where the importance of every decision they must make on car set-up and behind the wheel is correspondingly amplified.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes F1 W11

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images