F1 2021 will be spicy – Thank Frankel it’s Friday

Unless your name is Vettel of course. The uncomfortable truth he faces is either to leave Formula 1, or drive for a team with no hope of winning even a race, let alone a World Championship for the first time since he joined Toro Rosso in 2007. For him surely a dignified exit is the best route: because he’s been around so long it’s easy to forget that at 32 he’s still young (Lewis is 35) and could easily win the races and championships elsewhere that F1 now seems likely to deny him.

In the meantime, Sainz Jr. at Ferrari will be fascinating. For years the Scuderia has followed a policy of prioritising experience over youth, yet now it finds itself with what I believe is the youngest driver line up in its history: Sainz Jr. is just 25, Leclerc a trifling 22. Between them they have 144 F1 starts, two wins and no championships. Vettel all by himself has 240 starts, 53 wins and four F1 world titles. If you count Kimi winning the title in 2007, it is the first time in a quarter of a century that Ferrari has not had a world champion in its driver line up.

How will it play out among such youngsters? All the pressure is on Sainz Jr. Rightly or wrongly I think most people see him as a top division two driver, while Leclerc, like Max and Lewis, is absolutely D1 material, or at least that’s the perception. Having proved himself with the Scuderia in 2019 Charles Leclerc will have a natural advantage as the team will naturally polarise around him to begin with. But Sainz Jr. is not to be underestimated. While last year at McLaren Lando Norris was on average fractionally quicker in qualifying, Sainz Jr. scored almost twice as many points over the course of the season to finish sixth in the championship with 96 points. And that’s worth thinking about: the next best driver to not have driven for Ferrari, Mercedes or Red Bull was Ricciardo with 54 points. Carlos will be no push over and regard himself as every bit as capable of winning – and entitled to win – the title.

But, if anything, the McLaren situation is more delicious still for if it’s current rate of progress is maintained, there seems to be a real chance that something other the aforementioned Big Three might actually win a race. And that, as I have said before, has not happened since Kimi won the opening round of the championship back in, wait for it, 2013 when Lando Norris was, by lucky hap, just 13 years old.

I know Lando has a lot to prove but actually I think he did incredibly well in his rookie year against a driver as talented as Sainz Jr., given Carlos had four full seasons under his belt before Lando took his first start in F1. The fact he outqualified Sainz Jr. shows the speed is there. The rest can be learned.

As for Danny Ric, this is his moment. Let us not forget that this is the man who humbled Vettel at Red Bull in 2014, winning three races to Seb’s zero, so much so that the German ran away to Ferrari. He has an enormous talent, will brake later than anyone else in the sport and is a PR department’s dream, which is a more important skill than many might think. On paper Danny is a clear number one, and if he doesn’t show Lando his exhausts, McLaren will want to know why. But I just have a feeling that it’s young Mr Norris that’s going to shine next season. And if I had to bet on either of them becoming World Champion before time is called on their careers, all my money would be on Lando rather than Danny. But I’d be delighted with either.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.