How the Rumble in the Jungle can inspire Mercedes to beat Red Bull

It was only a matter of time before the current cast of Formula 1 teams elected to put a pin in the majority of their 2021 development and focus on next year’s all-new formula, complete with the return to ground effect-style aerodynamics and simplified wings and bodywork.

Although F1 teams have, in the past, been able to do both simultaneously, the transition for 2022 isn’t quite the same as the 2009 and 2017 aero overhauls – after all, there’s the small matter of a cost cap to factor in this time around. As the legendary Parks & Recreation character Ron Swanson once opined, don’t half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing.

The only question was thus: at which point will the teams pull the trigger on switching its resources to 2022? The decision was easy for the likes of Haas, which openly admitted that it had produced the most rudimentary of changes to satisfy this year’s changes and had its mind on next year before even the first race. We’ll only find out then whether that’s a true galaxy-brain strategy, or simply a surplus of optimistic thinking.

After the Styrian Grand Prix – only the eighth round of this year’s F1 championship – Mercedes boss Toto Wolff announced that it was ready to call it quits on developing the W12 for this year. Having updated its car with a few little bits and pieces to try and negate the low-rake cars’ disadvantage with the new floor rules, Mercedes has apparently elected to sacrifice further short-term gains for a more prosperous long term.

“It is a very, very tricky decision,” explained team principal Toto Wolff, “because we are having new regulations not only for next year but for years to come, a completely different car concept. And you’ve got to choose the right balance, and pretty much everybody is going to be on next year’s car.

“Some may still bring stuff. Red Bull has brought trucks or vans on Thursday and Friday with new parts. And fair enough, it’s a strategy. And one that proves to be successful as it stands, because [on Sunday], they were simply in a league of their own from car-pace wise.”

No doubt that decision was made even trickier than the fact that Mercedes is not only in the middle of a title battle, but also at a time where Red Bull seems to be improving with every race that goes by. Max Verstappen had extended his gaping lead to Lewis Hamilton to 17 seconds, before the seven-time champion pitted towards the end to snare the fastest lap point away from its energy fizz-funded rivals.

Helmut Marko, Consultant, Red Bull Racing, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 2nd position, Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, 1st position, and Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 3rd position, on the podium

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Wolff's suggestion that Mercedes will be pivoting to 2022 at a relatively early stage surprised Red Bull team boss Christian Horner, who said he didn’t believe that Mercedes would stop adding developments so early. The tete-a-tete battle between the two head honchos has been a wonderfully petty undercurrent to the title battle between Mercedes and Red Bull, and Horner’s scepticism at Wolff’s remarks suggested that he thought his counterpart was indulging in further gamesmanship.

“What Mercedes do is very much their business, so we're just focused on ourselves and we know that Toto likes to throw the light somewhere else,” Horner suggested. “So I can't believe that they'll go through the rest of this year without putting a single component on the car. But as I say, what we can do is focus on our own job. Of course, it is a balancing act between this year and next year, but if that means we've all got to work a bit harder than the other teams, we are fully up for it.”

Technical director James Allison then clarified Wolff's position in the F1 Nation podcast, adding that there were "things still in the food-chain from prior to that focus switch" and that "there is a little bit more to come also from the PU."

“So there's some more aerodynamic change in the offing," he continued. "A little bit on the PU, we hope, on the delivery side, and just a few things that are not quite as tidy as we would wish, that we still have got the opportunity to put right while this season is still very much alive and hot.”

“The championship is not only played with adding aerodynamic parts, because at this certain stage, even the ones like Red Bull who still keep adding parts, need to switch all of the development into next year” Toto Wolff

In short, Mercedes does have a few more bits and pieces already in the pipeline, but the pipeline itself will be closed off to make room for exploring the extremities of the 2022 ruleset.

Red Bull added a few minor additions into the mix ahead of the Austrian double-header, adding a collection of serrations to its diffuser – which now looks like an implement to cut cling film - while Verstappen dominated the Styrian Grand Prix as Hamilton was unable to keep up with the Dutch driver’s pace. Mercedes’ decision to bring an end to development for this year means that, theoretically, that gap will grow if Red Bull keeps its development up.

PLUS: How Red Bull reversed an old Mercedes advantage in the Styrian GP

Even though it has publicly pinned its focus on next year, Mercedes is not giving up the fight. That’s simply not how the all-conquering squad spread across Brackley and Brixworth works. It will instead concentrate on making the best out of what it already has in its pocket in order to bridge the gap.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W12

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

It almost reads like a Taskmaster challenge: ‘Beat the fastest team in F1. You may not design anything new for the car. Your time starts now.’

And that leads us to the most salient of questions: what can Mercedes do to beat Red Bull aside from bolting on those residual updates ?

The first, naturally, will be what the team can pull out of the bag with regards to set-up. There are lots of different parameters to play with – aero configuration, suspension settings and engine modes – that it can make use of to coax more performance out of the W12.

This puts a lot more of the team’s focus on turning every single stone in practice. Understanding how the car works on the upcoming circuits and tailoring the set-up to the tracks with the reams of data available will be much more crucial. On the flipside, not having to bed in any new parts and understand how they work can give Mercedes a bit more time to understand what it already has, so it’s something of a double-edged sword.

“The championship is not only played with adding aerodynamic parts, because at this certain stage, even the ones like Red Bull who still keep adding parts, need to switch all of the development into next year,” Wolff added.

“And that means all the exploitation of the car around the set-up, the set-up work, the tyres, and the optimisation of how we are running, will become a very, very important part. And it would make no sense to put a week or two, a month back on the current car, because the gains wouldn’t be anywhere near of the gains we are making on the 2022 car.

“But having said that, this is far from over. We had a very difficult weekend here in Austria, with no weapons in our armoury to win this race fair and straight. But we will be winning races this season, and we will be having pole positions, and we will be fighting as much as we can for every single result.”

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, with Toto Wolff, Team Principal and CEO, Mercedes AMG

Photo by: Steve Etherington / Motorsport Images

Mercedes has also struggled to get the best out of the tyres this year, and so finding more out about them over a race weekend – especially when the rear tyres are changed in the next few races to ones with harder sidewalls – can yield further gains. Teams have developed their own tyre models, where the characteristics of the Pirelli F1 rubber is transformed into numbers and used to simulate how they will behave within a certain set of parameters.

PLUS: What the data tells us about the F1 2021 title fight

Although Pirelli claims that the updated sidewalls will not pose too much of an effect, they will; the stiffer sidewall will change factors such as cornering stiffness or slip as the tyre deforms in a different manner.

Another aspect that has become incredibly vital in the 2021 championship battle is with strategy – which helped Mercedes win in Spain, but not in France as Red Bull took the initiative with an additional stop to give Verstappen free licence to chomp away at Hamilton’s lead. Mercedes will have to pick the right time in the upcoming races to be conservative, and the right time to think outside of the box and take the lead in terms of strategy - forcing Red Bull into reacting.

Both teams still need to get everything absolutely right – and any single mistake can have huge knock-on consequences for either team – even something as small as a slow pitstop or a mis-timed lock-up can divert either from their path to championship glory

With a sports analogy, the title battle now somewhat resembles the infamous Rumble in the Jungle – the 1974 boxing match in which former worldbeater Muhammad Ali was expected to lose roundly to rising star (and future grill salesman) George Foreman. Foreman was younger, stronger, and at the top of his game, while Ali was older and not at the same level he’d boxed at before he was banned for three-and-a-half years for avoiding the Vietnam War draft.

But while Foreman had the strength and the stamina to win, and was expected to dominate the proceedings in Kinshasa, Ali employed the famous “rope-a-dope" tactic to ward off Foreman. This entailed Ali using the ropes around the arena to lessen the blow of the bigger punches and tire Foreman out, while retaliating with several blows to Foreman’s face. Ali, famously, won against all the odds.

Mercedes, in this instance, will hope to replicate Ali’s success against a more mobile team with more resources available. And thus, it must take the lead tactically to negate the effect of Red Bull’s greater development.

Naturally, there will be circuits that suit Red Bull more, and Mercedes must ensure it performs in those races too in order to lessen the points deficit between them. But equally, Mercedes will also have circuits in which it has the better car, and also needs to ensure that both cars are firing on all cylinders to take all the points it’s capable of scoring home. That falls into the remit of working with set-up, choosing the right aero balance and again understanding the tyres to put together a strong sequence of races.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes W12, Sergio Perez, Red Bull Racing RB16B

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Mercedes has been consistently strong at circuits like Spa, Sochi and Austin – and need to exploit its prior advantage on those tracks - and hope that the W12 is up to continuing that run of performance. But Red Bull also has circuits like Hungary and Mexico coming up that will likely swing in its favour – and depending on what happens with the end-of-season run with regards to the calendar, could also have Interlagos on its side. Those are venues where Mercedes needs to force itself in a position to win if the Red Bull duo falls foul of Lady Luck’s capricious whims.

Zandvoort and Jeddah will be unknown quantities – as will Turkey be to some degree – and at those venues, it’ll be down to whichever team is on the ball fastest in practice.

Although they’re limited by the cars, it’s also up to the drivers to make some of the difference. Verstappen and Hamilton are at the top of their game, and if they’ve got a car capable of winning, they’ll take those opportunities 99.9% of the time. A sprinkling of magic from either can also swing the difference - even if the team begins the weekend behind the eight-ball. Hamilton’s recovery throughout the Baku weekend (before the wrong kind of ‘magic’ conjured up a restart lock-up) is one such example.

Both championship protagonists also need their wingmen. Now that Sergio Perez is finding his feet with the Red Bull’s unique characteristics, he’s giving the team much more latitude with their strategies – and by remaining in the front guard mix, he automatically serves as a disruptor in the options Mercedes has.

Bottas also needs to be on his A-game. Although discussions over his yet-to-be-renewed contract and the lanky spectre of George Russell continue to loom large, the Finn must shake any doubts about his future from his mind - and focus on playing the consistently effective deputy for Hamilton that he’s been before.

Both teams still need to get everything absolutely right – and any single mistake can have huge knock-on consequences for either team – even something as small as a slow pitstop or a mis-timed lock-up can divert either from their path to championship glory.

There’s still everything to play for between the two teams – and although this is the biggest title challenge Mercedes has had to face, it refuses to give up to Red Bull just yet. Or, as Ali whispered in Foreman’s ear during their fight in 1974, “is that all you’ve got?”

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes, 3rd position, in Parc Ferme

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images