The mixed fortunes of F1 2021's rookie crop

“Blessed is he who expects nothing,” wrote the poet Alexander Pope, “for he shall never be disappointed.”

Two of the three drivers to make their Formula 1 debuts this season came freighted with high expectations: Yuki Tsunoda, anointed as F1’s next big thing by no less an eminence than Red Bull’s driver advisor Helmut Marko; and Mick Schumacher, son of seven-time world champion Michael, discreetly supported by Ferrari and surrounded by much of dad’s protective entourage. It’s fair to say neither of them have made an immediate impact you could describe as Ayrton Senna-like, Lewis Hamilton-like or, dare we say it, Schumacher-like.

Given the substantial powertrain technology step between F2 and F1 in the hybrid era, beyond even the difference in downforce levels, was it fair to expect the outcome to be any different?

Yuki Tsunoda

Yuki Tsunoda, AlphaTauri

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Verdict: Can do better
Championship position: 14th
Best result: 4th (Abu Dhabi Grand Prix)
Points: 32 

There were those who thought that Marko was edging out on the proverbial limb when he made the unequivocal claim that Tsunoda had been faster than Mick Schumacher in F2. Still, the Honda protege arrived in F1 as arguably the most exciting prospect to emerge from Red Bull’s young driver programme since Max Verstappen.

In Bahrain, Tsunoda became the first driver to score points on their grand prix debut since Stoffel Vandoorne in 2016. The swashbuckling manner in which he did so – racking up the overtakes after an indifferent first lap, and mugging Lance Stroll for ninth on the final tour – seemed to provide ample justification for Marko’s faith. Indeed, it was a display that moved F1 director of motorsports Ross Brawn to describe Tsunoda as “the best Formula 1 rookie in years” – a tag the young Japanese driver spent the rest of the season struggling to justify.

After Bahrain, Tsunoda was generally outshone by his more experienced team-mate Pierre Gasly, particularly in qualifying, as he found it more difficult than anticipated to adapt to the different downforce levels in F1, the vagaries of the Pirelli tyres, and a car that could be quick on one-lap pace but which exhibited a disturbing tendency to eat up its rubber.

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In these last two respects Tsunoda shares a burden with his fellow rookies: that of arriving in an interim year, one in which the aerodynamics of the cars have had to be hacked about to protect an obsolescent family of tyres. Disappointingly for a driver viewed as quick to learn and adapt, one of his responses to the challenge was to go to pieces. In the wake of being eliminated in Q1 at Barcelona, he went as far as claiming he was receiving unequal treatment and equipment to Gasly.

“I lost my mind,” he reflected later.

There were signs of improvement later in the season, particularly in Hungary, where Tsunoda stood aloof from the chaos to snatch sixth; the US GP, where he made one of his too-infrequent visits to Q3 and finished ninth; and the Abu Dhabi finale. But he was still nearly a second off Gasly in Q3 at Austin and had to resort to the strategically sub-optimal soft tyre to get there, which put him on the back foot in the opening stint.

Alex Albon, who has been coaching Tsunoda behind the scenes, now has an F1 drive again, so it will be up to Tsunoda to manage his sophomore season. It’s clear where the improvements need to come: maximising the car in qualifying, avoiding trouble in the race, and swearing a little less down the team radio.

Mick Schumacher

Schumacher impressed with his resilience in battle at the Hungaroring, but there were still plenty of shunts

Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images

Verdict: Should do better
Championship position: 19th
Best result: 12th (Hungarian Grand Prix)
Points: 0 

Much ink has been spilled on the subject of Schumacher’s path through the junior formulas and we do not propose to add to the puddle here. Suffice to say that he clocked in as F2 champion and the subject of great excitement, given his surname. He also arrived with a fully formed support group staffed by his father’s former entourage, and the gift of being able to conduct a lengthy interview session without saying much of substance.

“It’s been a lot better than I pictured,” he said of his maiden F1 season in one such exchange. “On the racing side we knew it was going to be a difficult year but I think we managed as a team well.”

Schumacher has a remarkable talent for understatement. Haas, a team which has barely been able to keep the lights on for the past 18 months, approached the 2021 season with a car barely changed from the previous year except where it had been cut-and-shut to meet the new regulations. Even the tubs were carried over. Aside from a smattering of components already signed off ahead of the season opener, it received no meaningful upgrades.

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To attempt to drive the VF-21 at speed sometimes seemed to put its pilots on the edge of a massive accident, so both Schumacher and team-mate Nikita Mazepin deserve credit for crashing less often than they might have done. But while the poverty spec of the car has mitigated some of the weight of expectation on Schumacher, and made it impossible to evaluate him rigorously against the rest of the field, it’s fair to say that he’s had his team-mate well beaten.

Schumacher was routinely quicker than Mazepin in qualifying by an order of magnitude. Mazepin’s camp point out that their man was saddled with a much-patched chassis believed to be 4kg heavier than Schumacher’s, which was a newer one built up after Romain Grosjean’s shunt in Bahrain last season. This has an effect on tuning the handling via ballast as well as outright weight, but surely cannot account for gaps of up to a second or more.

Schumacher was sporadically impressive when the car permitted. At Paul Ricard he made it through to Q2 for the first time, though he shunted on his final run. In Hungary he had another big accident, this time in FP3 (a random gust of wind at the wrong time after he’d rooted his tyres by pushing too hard). Then, after missing qualifying, he profited from the Turn 1 chaos to run in the points briefly, battling confidently with Max Verstappen. Just as impressive was the way he held off Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi late on, while repeatedly having to obey blue flags, to hold on to 13th (which later became 12th), even though it wouldn’t earn him points.

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When Schumacher shunted in Saudi Arabia he was trying to get into the DRS window to attack George Russell’s Williams. You’ve got to admire his fighting spirit – and, if he follows the trend he established in the junior formulas of making huge improvements in his second year, he may yet fulfil all those great expectations.

Nikita Mazepin

Mazepin had a bruising first year

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Verdict: Must do better
Championship position: 21st
Best result: 14th (Azerbaijan Grand Prix)
Points: 0 

“You have to eat an elephant bite by bite,” Mazepin told reporters ahead of the season finale. “To me F1 and an elephant feel quite similar.”

It is Mazepin’s occasionally questionable on-track etiquette rather than his dietary habits that have caught the eye during his rookie season, that and a veritable smorgasbord of spins and shunts. This should come as no surprise given his track record of self-control issues, such as punching Callum Ilott in the face during an F3 event in 2016, and more recently coming close to mowing down Tsunoda in parc ferme after last year’s Spa F2 feature race.

That said, he has largely kept his temper in check during his maiden F1 season, although relations with team-mate Schumacher have scarcely been cordial. In one notable – and ugly – reversion to habits exhibited in F2, Mazepin nearly put Schumacher in the wall at Zandvoort.

He has also been maligned for leapfrogging other drivers in the queue to take a flying lap during qualifying, a tactic that is accepted in F2 but considered to be against the “gentlemen’s agreement” in F1. Still, the conduct of F1 luminaries (including Sebastian Vettel and Verstappen) who essentially did the same thing to Mazepin in Jeddah suggests the gentlemen’s agreement isn’t worth the paper it’s not written on.

Mazepin was arguably better prepared for his debut than either Tsunoda or Schumacher, since his father (whose money has essentially kept the Haas team afloat) paid for an extensive private testing programme in a 2017 Mercedes F1 car during 2020. ‘Arguably’ being the operative word, since the Haas is a lesser car.

“Him driving the Mercedes last year, I think he learned something, but he has to learn our car is not as good as a Mercedes,” said Haas team boss Gunther Steiner after Mazepin spun out of first practice at Imola. “He needs to find that limit but that’s [for] him to find, not us. We have got the whole year to learn. Hopefully we haven’t got the year to spin.”

Mazepin has demonstrated improvement, albeit from a low bar, especially after his father paid for a new tub to replace the elderly and overweight one he had been complaining about since the first round. He was reduced to tears at Interlagos after blundering on his fastest Q1 lap, one which might have been quicker than Schumacher’s.

While he has only finished ahead of Schumacher three times, he has retired less often than you might think, and not all of those failures were his own making: in Hungary, for instance, Kimi Raikkonen’s Alfa Romeo was released into his path in the pitlane. Overall, though, the impression is one of a driver operating at the boundaries of a limited skill set keeping a dreadful car on the track.

Mazepin crashed out on the opening lap of his debut in Bahrain

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images