© Vladimir RysSeason So Far: Part 6Three races, three weeks, three continents… and two championships in the balance
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Kicking off proceedings was a home race to remember for Sergio Perez, as he took the championship winning RB7 around the streets of Mexico City and the iconic Paseo de le Reforma. Before heading to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, where the Mexican fiesta was out in full force.
From there the Team headed south to São Paulo for yet another action-packed duel at the front of the field. And then to finish it all off there was the long-haul flight to Qatar, where the country hosted its first-ever Formula One race.
Round18:MexicoCityGrandPrix
- Circuit: Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City
- Max: P1
- Checo: P3
A home grand prix is always a pleasure, but with it comes a weight of expectation, and few drivers have ever had to carry quite so much weight as Checo, with a massive, magnificent crowd in the cauldron of the Foro Sol cheering his every passage. Happily, he and the Team delivered.
The Team was in great spirits making the short trip from Austin, following the double-podium at the Circuit of The Americas, but the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez posed a very different challenge, 2km above sea-level. High speeds and low downforce in the thin air were the order of the day, but it’s been a circuit that we’ve always enjoyed in the past, just as soon as we’ve been able to catch our breathe.
Mexican Flag Waving In The Stands© Vladimir Rys
The times in practice suggested a very tight weekend ahead. The Mercedes were in front after FP1, but Max went fastest in second practice and Checo in final practice. Things were looking good for qualifying. Tight though it was, that continued to be the case until the intervention of an errant puff of dust set in train a bizarre of events that led to Max and Checo starting from the second row. Yuki Tsunoda, having been on towing duty for teammate Pierre Gasly, ran off track to get out of the way of cars on their final run in Q3.
The cloud of dust kicked up on the run-off managed to disrupt Checo’s rhythm, and he went off, while Max saw the now larger cloud of dust and lifted, expected to see yellow flags. Neither could improve their time, P3 for Max, P4 for Checo.
But, like Sochi, Mexico City isn’t a great place to be starting on the front row. The 800+ metres to the braking zone is a long, long way, and perfect for exploiting a tow. Max hooked-up an excellent start and swooped through to take the lead into turn one. That’s the last anyone saw of him, as cruised to victory with a 16 seconds margin.
Checo’s race was a little more combative. He took P3 at the start, and harried Lewis Hamilton all through the first stint. When Lewis wasn’t to be moved, Checo went long, storing up a big tyre delta to attack at the end of the one-stop race. Despite his best efforts, and 140,000 fans urging him on, his intense pressure didn’t pay off, and he had to settle for third, and a first visit to the podium at his home race.
Max And Checo Celebrate Double Podium© Vladimir Rys
While Max took the victory and extended his lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship, there was little doubt who was the star of this particular show: “I could feel the fans’ energy when I was going through the stadium sector and I was thinking about how many people were here for me,” said Checo.
“I wanted more but I am just very happy to be on the podium of my home country. I think today we were the fastest Team but that is going to swing around for the remainder of the season, so we just have to keep our focus and keep pushing.”
Round19:SãoPauloGrandPrix
- Circuit: Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos, São Paulo, Brazil
- Max: P2
- Checo: P4
The name may be different, but the venue was much the same, with F1 arriving back in Brazil at Interlagos after a year’s hiatus. The game, however, had changed for 2021, with the newly-christened São Paulo Grand Prix being the season’s third and final sprint event.
After two victories in a row, Max went into the weekend full of confidence, but a sequence of incredibly rapid laps from Lewis Hamilton prompted a reappraisal of the balance of power after FP1, though not a very long one given the urgency to fix the car’s specification ahead of qualifying and the commencement of parc fermé.
Max had to settle for P2, four-tenths off Hamilton’s best in qualifying, and a tenth ahead of Checo, though Valtteri Bottas was between them. That turned into Sprint Pole when post-quali scrutineering checks discovered an anomaly with Hamilton’s DRS that excluded him from the result.
Full House At São Paulo Grand Prix© Vladimir Rys
Max’s lead at the start of the sprint was short-lived. As had been a feature of the sprints at Silverstone and Monza, the softs conferred a certain advantage off the line, and Max fell behind the soft-shod Bottas and the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz. He regained the place from Sainz two laps later but could do nothing about Bottas. Checo, meanwhile, had slipped back from P3 to P4 at the start, and stayed there the entire race.
The sprint weekends haven’t created a particular disturbance in the balance of power, with the general approach to the sprint being caution-first. Though the change in the tyre allocation and the free choice of starting rubber has, perhaps, had an impact, though only in the sense it’s led to a reduced amount of variation on the grid. Thus, everyone, except Yuki Tsunoda, started Sunday’s race on a Medium tyre.
It was the opposite of the Sprint start with Max taking the lead from Bottas, and Checo moving up into P2. They stayed there until lap 19 when Lewis Hamilton passed Checo for P2 and set about chasing down Max. Max held the lead through two rounds of pit stops but had no real answer to the speed of the Mercedes. Despite some robust defending that is still being discussed several weeks later, Max eventually succumbed to the inevitable.
Checo meanwhile, lost P3 to Bottas through the stops. Both drivers drove a fine race but in Brazil it wasn’t enough. “I knew today would be difficult, but I did everything I could, we were just lacking a little bit,” said Max in the aftermath. “At least it was a fun race.”
Max Finishes P2 At Interlagos© Getty Images
- Circuit: Losail International Circuit, Doha, Qatar
- Max: P2
- Checo: P4
It’s rare for F1 to go to a circuit that manages to be both exceptionally well know but also entirely alien. MotoGP and WSBK have been gracing the Losail International Circuit since it opened in 2004, but visits by international four-wheeled series have been few and far between. Though GP2 Asia did visit in 2009, with a teenage Checo in the field. He confessed to not really remembering much about the circuit. He did, however remember winning.
Losail is the sort of track that should be memorable. After a 1km straight the rest of the circuit is a rolling sequence of linked corners, most of which are either high-speed or very high-speed. The cars on a qualifying lap do not often drop below fifth gear and in this Losail resembled our other last-minute drop-in for the bike world: Mugello. The difference between the Tuscan track and our first visit to Qatar was not the heat, evening temperatures for the sunset race were very pleasant, but rather the abrasiveness of the tarmac: Losail is a happy destroyer of tyres.
Max started the weekend strongly, fastest in FP1, but slipped back in the subsequent practice sessions. He did well to qualify in P2 but was four-tenth off Hamilton. That got worse on Sunday morning when, he, together with Valtteri Bottas were adjudged to have ignored a yellow flag. Max had his best qualifying time deleted and was handed a five-place grid penalty. It still left him ahead of Checo, who had endured a torrid qualifying session, qualifying P11.
The Sparks Fly As The Bulls Charge© Vladimir Rys
Better things were to come for Max on race day, a rocket start got him up to P4 on the opening lap, then P3 on lap three and P2 on lap five, but he couldn’t do anything about Hamilton and, for the second weekend in a row, had to settle for P2.
Behind him, Checo had an equally impressive recovery, rising to P4 by lap 16. His target was Fernando Alonso in P3, but Alonso was running a long one-stop strategy, compared to Checo’s two, which meant the pair, while locked in an intense battle, were frequently separated by large swathes of track. Their race was coming together, with Checo expected to be in striking range at the very end of the grand prix, but a Virtual Safety Car two laps from home halted his charge, and he had to settle for fourth place.
Max softened the blow of P2 by taking the point for fastest lap but, with the grands prix of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi remaining, his championship lead is cut to eight points. Qatar was, however, a good race for the Team in the Constructors’ Championship, cutting the gap to just five points. For the neutral, if such a person exists, the 2021 Championships are beautifully poised. Max framed the battle perfectly in summation. “For now, we need to stay focused, there are still two races left to go and a lot of things can happen, anything is possible.”
Max Crossing The Finishing Line In Qatar© Vladimir Rys
