The small room at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, where the three fastest drivers of the day prepare for the awards ceremony, is a place of emotional debate and agitation on the better days. In the center is a television, on which the most wonderful and sometimes hearty overtaking maneuvers are shown again. On Sunday, however, second-placed Lewis Hamilton sat in front of the screen, next to him were the winner Max Verstappen and third-placed Sergio Pérez – they didn’t speak a word to each other. Oh no, they stared and said nothing.
Verstappen has now achieved 14 wins this season, something that has never happened in 72 years of Formula 1
They watched a few overtaking maneuvers by Daniel Ricciardo (rare!), a bit of racing action by Fernando Alonso (classic!), and what they unfortunately didn’t see: gripping wheel-to-wheel duels that they fought among themselves. So what should they discuss? About the fact that Hamilton had no chance because Mercedes had screwed on the wrong set of tires, which team boss Toto Wolff classified as “grab the toilet”?
The old Verstappen, who has already been the new world champion for three races, also won the Grand Prix in Mexico City in the superior and impressively tire-friendly way that he has been performing all season. It was his 14th triumph in the 20th World Championship round of the year, surpassing the previous record holders Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel, who had each grabbed 13 trophies in their most dominant phases. 14 victories, that has never happened in 72 years of Formula 1 history. “What an incredible season,” said Verstappen after a freight elevator had lifted him into the limelight together with his racing car, “we enjoy it and want more.” Applause, fireworks, fanfare!
Pardon me, just a quick nagging in the blaring horns: Maybe it’s a bit of a shame that the Red Bull Racing team has to enjoy this incredible season almost exclusively. A year ago, Verstappen, Hamilton and Perez were in exactly the same order on the podium in Mexico. And when they left again, just 19 points separated the Brit and the Dutchman in the overall standings. This time there are 200. In words: Two hundred!
Rights holder Liberty Media and Formula 1 had planned the exact opposite of a solo ride by Verstappen through Monument Valley accompanied only by the whistle of the wind when they kicked off this season with the biggest technology novella in decades.
The challenge facing the engineers of having to design a new car from scratch should push the cars closer together in the field – together with the cost cap that has been in effect since last year. Then it became apparent that the aerodynamic design of the racing cars had become so complex that the teams with the most capable engineers had an advantage: Red Bull in the lead, which can count itself lucky to employ the brilliant designer Adrian Newey. While Hamilton tended to go to the osteopath more often than to the pits because the ups and downs of his silver arrow caused by permanent stalls hit his spine, Newey was the first to understand how the hopping of Verstappen’s cars could be tamed.
Verstappen benefits from Newey’s champion car, but steers it with great sensitivity
The competition has long been worried that Red Bull could maintain this dominance and thus dominate an era. Nowhere else do they know how difficult it is to make up for a technical disadvantage as well as at Mercedes. After the introduction of the hybrid engines in 2014, they let no one touch them for eight years and grabbed all the constructors’ titles. Before Red Bull shot past them this season with a friendly wave, as if they had a so-called fast lane for priority boarding at their disposal.
Meanwhile, Hamilton is racing towards a sad record: For the first time in 16 years of Formula 1, he will probably end a season without a race win.
Even if Verstappen is the subject of Newey’s masterpiece this season, he steers the RB18 with so much sensitivity around all the pitfalls of the racing calendar, which has been bloated to 22 Grands Prix, that the impression is reinforced that the Dutchman has even more driving skills after his first title win matured. He keeps his concentration high and is insatiable, although both world championship trophies have long since been distributed. It cannot be proven that the shadows of last year’s controversial final also played a part in his professional doggedness. It would be psychologically understandable. Some events weigh so heavily that mental scars remain.
The anarchic safety car control of race director Michael Masi on the third Sunday of Advent in Abu Dhabi was the trauma for many months for Hamilton, who lost his eighth title at the time. In the meantime, it is obviously also a trauma for Verstappen, who was steered by Masi at the decisive moment (last lap of the race!) to the world championship. The irritation with which he now reacted to the subject in Mexico hardly allows any other conclusions.
The dispute also shows that Formula 1 is so bored that it enjoys its own debates
Pit reporter Ted Kravitz, employed by TV rights holder Sky, had previously spoken of Hamilton’s “robbed championship” in the 2021 season in one of his posts. Verstappen then complained about “constant irritation with disrespect, especially by a certain person”. And Team Red Bull imposed a media boycott. Not just against Kravitz. Not even against Sky UK, which Kravitz works for. Oh no, also against Sky Italia and Sky Germany – clan liability for all Sky employees! Team boss Christian Horner justified the amazing campaign as follows: “In our opinion, the allegation that the championship was stolen does not represent an objective comment.”
Is that so? And even if: Does this justify a general boycott against an entire group of broadcasters?
The Duden defines the weak verb “rob” as, firstly: “to take possession of another’s property unlawfully and using or threatening to use force”, which in fact neither Michael Masi nor Red Bull can be accused of. And secondly as: “deprive someone of something”. At least that applies to Masi.
The dispute between Red Bull and Sky also shows that due to the lack of tension, Formula 1 is just so bored with circling around itself that it enjoys debates that seemed to have long since been overcome. And the truth also includes: The fact that the memories of last season’s finale are revived so strongly is because Red Bull has just involuntarily put the entire 2021 season in the limelight.
Because the Austro-British team was the only one to exceed the budget limit last year – by as much as 2.2 million dollars – the world association Fia sentenced it to a fine of seven million dollars and a ten percent reduction in the test program in the wind tunnel. When Hamilton was certain that the competition had not only fought with permitted means last year, it also awakened the spirits of Abu Dhabi, he recently told the BBC. He had “somehow buried” the memory of it beforehand and continued driving. “And then it comes back up and it’s like another kick. Yeah, that kind of freshened everything up.”
In two weeks, Formula 1 returns to the Yas Marina Circuit. Race director Michael Masi is no longer there, the posse from Abu Dhabi cost him his office. Verstappen and Hamilton remain. In the absence of a sporting challenge, the memories should then become a little fresher.