Four talking points ahead of the F1 season climax

Can Max Verstappen become champion in Saudi Arabia?

The neutrals among us will hope against it, but Verstappen can wrap up his first F1 world championship this weekend if things go his way. The main permutations are quite simple, given that no one else has managed even a whiff of a look-in this season. The 24-year-old Dutchman will become champion if:

• Verstappen finishes first with fastest lap and Hamilton finishes sixth or lower
• If Verstappen finishes first and Hamilton finishes seventh or lower
• If Verstappen finishes second with fastest lap and Hamilton finishes 10^th or lower
• If Verstappen finishes second and Hamilton doesn't score

Circuits offer unknown challenge

It’s a pity the championship run-in won’t be the Austin-Mexico City-Interlagos triple-header rather than F1’s first Middle Eastern hat-trick, but a mix of ongoing Covid challenges and surely a financial incentive for F1 to race in this oil-rich region leads us here.

There are plenty of ethical reasons to question why a Saudi GP is a good idea. But beyond political and human rights concerns, there are straightforward practical queries to be answered too. Namely, will the new Jeddah Corniche street track really be fully prepared for its debut this weekend? For a sovereign kingdom of such vast wealth, it’s been something of a surprise to see how fine the organisers have been cutting it to make the venue race-ready.

Assuming it is good to go, the drivers and teams will face what looks likely to be a fast, difficult street circuit with its own unique character. Built on a Red Sea coastal resort, F1’s go-to circuit designer Hermann Tilke initially used Google Maps to find roads that were suitable, with a clear brief from Ross Brawn no doubt ringing in his ears. “What we want to see is a race circuit,” said F1’s sporting chief. “We don’t want Mickey Mouse circuits. We don’t want those old classic street circuits with 90 degree turns. We want fast sweeping circuits, circuits which are going to challenge the drivers – and they are going to love it.”

Average speeds this coming weekend are predicted to top 156mph on the flowing track, which makes it quicker than Silverstone and only second to Monza. So get set for the fastest street track F1 has ever visited. Let’s just hope the drivers can overtake.

If the title fight goes all the way to Abu Dhabi – fingers crossed – even there the drivers and teams will face new challenges, following significant revisions to the Yas Marina circuit layout designed to create more overtaking at a track that has been notoriously hard for passing since it first opened in 2009. Eliminating the chicane before Turn 7 and widening the hairpin might help, and the same is hoped by smoothing out Turns 11 to 14 into one banked corner. Changing the radius of the corners at the end of the lap too means all previous team data will now be next to useless. Unknown elements usually throw extra jeopardy into title fights, so perhaps the choice of Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi for final venues will turn out perfectly after all for an unforgettable sporting spectacle. Here’s hoping.

Who will win the constructors': Mercedes or Red Bull?

If you’d told Hamilton he’d only be eight points behind his rival at this point following the Mexican GP, he probably wouldn’t have believed you. Such was Red Bull’s startling form in the race, Mercedes found itself well and truly vanquished to a degree that was almost humiliating. But then everything turned at Interlagos and Qatar, where Hamilton scored noteworthy back-to-back victories.

Red Bull’s bleating about something fishy going on around Merc’s apparently flexing rear wing was, ahem, a drag. But has Christian Horner’s public tactic of attempting to name and shame Mercedes, which has consistently denied any wrongdoing, had the desired effect? He reckoned the “abnormal” straight-line speed advantage Merc showed in Interlagos was gone at the more technical Losail circuit in Qatar. The sweeping blast around the Jeddah track should indicate clearly whether a tight and increasingly bitter battle between the top two teams has taken another swing.

Let’s just hope off-track squabbles don’t take the shine off a duel that has mostly been fought between the drivers without rancour – aside from the collisions at Silverstone and Monza. It will be down to Verstappen and Hamilton to avoid their fight ending in a Prost/Senna-type collision. But would you bet against it? If so, your money would be considered far from safe.

Will Ferrari beat McLaren?

Beyond the title battle between Verstappen and Hamilton, plus the teams’ duel which is even closer – Mercedes has just a five-point advantage over Red Bull – what else can we look forward to in Saudi and Abu Dhabi? Perhaps a late rally from McLaren to pick up what is becoming a disappointingly flat end to a previously strong season? Even if Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo do manage to rouse a big performance from their Mercedes-powered MCL35Ms, the team lies 39.5 points down on Ferrari in the battle for third-best constructor. The British team has a mountain to climb to equal its finishing position from last year.

The drop-off in form from McLaren has been alarming this autumn. But even if Ferrari has been more consistent and looks set for a three-place rise from its lowly sixth last year, the 2021 season still represents a strangely subdued one for Charles Leclerc – increasingly a wasted talent – and Carlos Sainz Jr. At least McLaren has won a race, courtesy of Ricciardo’s inherited victory at Monza. Neither Ferrari driver has really looked close to one this year – and while third would be a big improvement, Ferrari is still currently a massive 244 points off Red Bull’s tally. The most famous team of them all has a chasm to bridge if it is to join Mercedes and Red Bull as a title contender next year, when new car regulations kick in.

But that’s a story for another day. Right now our focus remains trained on the two penultimate rounds of what has been an utterly absorbing contest. Let’s just hope the conclusion turns out to be the one such a battle deserves. Over to you, Max and Lewis.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.