🇹🇷 Formula 1 2021: Round 16 - Risk-takers and innovators

(c) Aston Martin on Twitter

Is it ok to describe an entirely wet race with no retirements as a bit of a damp squib? Valtteri Bottas checked out and won his first race of the season, making it six different winners this season - more than any other season of the hybrid era. And in the championship battle, it’s advantage Max Verstappen as he held his second place as part of a double podium for Red Bull while Lewis Hamilton battled back from an engine component penalty to finish fifth.

Six winners? Six?!

And while Mercedes went risk-averse, pitting the world champion late in the game to guarantee a fifth rather than risk a podium, there were some differing opinions to risk on the fast-wearing intermediate tyres. Firstly, look at Alpine and Esteban Ocon, who completed the race without pitting even once, something that hasn’t been done since Monaco 1997.

Ocon’s tyres looked wrecked as he collected the final point, but for all the management in the world, 58 laps on one set of tyres should be near-impossible to carry off successfully. Several other teams thought there might have been a crossover point where the risk of slicks would be worth the 24-25 second pit stop for a dash in the closing laps. That point never really happened, making the tyre management a bit pointless at the end. Then there’s Aston Martin, and the team that really threw the dice with Sebastian Vettel, putting the four-time world champion onto slicks. The experiment was not successful, with Vettel coming back in for intermediates, compromising his race, and eventually finishing 18th.

Lance Stroll took a couple of points in ninth, matching his 2020 finish, as Aston Martin continued in a fairly unchallenged seventh in the constructors’ championship. It’s unfair to say the team has had a fall from grace compared to last year, but at Turkey in 2020, Stroll took pole position, and Sergio Perez finished ninth. If you also consider race 16 of the season, Perez took a win for Racing Point in Sakhir in what was a perfect storm of a race, but it was still a first victory for both driver and team, and arguably cemented the Mexican’s move to Red Bull for 2021.

This graph shows the progress the team has made over the first 16 races of a season. You can see that their points total this season is significantly worse than 2020, but better than it was in 2019. Last season, they were consistent scorers, taking points on 25/32 opportunities. This season, over the same number of races, they’ve done it 12 times, as well as a DSQ from second for Vettel in Hungary.But that also doesn’t tell the whole story. 

Here’s another graph that takes one of the few constants at the team in the last three years. Lance Stroll has been outscored as a percentage by his teammate over 16 races, which sounds like a disaster for the Canadian, but there are signs of optimism. Let’s face it, he isn’t going to lose his seat, with his father being part-owner of the team, but he is closer to parity with Vettel than he ever was with Perez, and judging from his interactions with his engineer, he’s certainly growing in confidence.

And while they’re seventh, they have something they didn’t have for a while - stability. With Stroll senior being part-owner, he has outlined some of his plans, and they sound like the sort of blueprint for a team that plans for be in Formula 1 for many years to come. A new factory is coming, and it sounds like there is an ambition to be fighting at the front on the regular, rather than as a one-off, putting them in a fascinating microscope in years to come.

There’s also their social media output. In a similar way to Inter Milan FC, Aston Martin have taken advantage of fortuitous initials and built their off-track offering as #IAM. It works really well, and they’ve been very clear about being as inclusive as possible. This shouldn’t sound revolutionary, but a Formula 1 team saying “All in. All welcome. All celebrated.” really feels like a statement.

As the championship moves onto Austin, Texas, with a later lights out time (8pm UK), Hamilton vs Verstappen is a six-point Dutch advantage. But Istanbul shone a spotlight onto the risks drivers face, the strategy calls teams make (or don’t make) and highlighted how Aston Martin are slowly, surely, sustainably building an outfit for the future, even if right now, there’s some medicine to take.

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Previously this season

🇷🇺 R15 - Centurion

🇮🇹 R14 – Papaya Progress

Check out the 2021 season here

Around the 2021 season

📆 SOON: It is impossible to put together an F1 calendar that pleases everyone 

🎮 The arguments for and against putting F3 and W Series into F1 2022 (and beyond)

🧨 How do you play politics at 200mph?

📈 Formula 2, Formula 3 and W Series – Why F1's support races are great

🏁 The pros and cons of sprint qualifying

🔮 Four odd predictions for F1 2021