🇦🇿 Formula 1 2021: R6 — The award for Best Supporting Driver goes to...

Ouch.

Image: Red Bull Racing on Twitter

Leading the race with a handful of laps remaining in Baku, Max Verstappen was close to a win in Azerbaijan to extend his championship lead over Lewis Hamilton.

Then disaster struck with what seemed like a second tyre blowout of the race.The image of the Dutch driver punting his Pirellis in frustration might become the defining image of the season, not just denying Red Bull their first 1-2 since Malaysia 2016, but also a crucial haul of points for Verstappen and team as they look to overhaul the champions.

But all was not lost. Sergio Perez, who did a fantastic job as the rear gunner, held off Aston Martin’s first podium in the form of Sebastian Vettel, and Pierre Gasly to take 25 points away from Hamilton and become the third race winner of the season.

And speaking of the world champion, he risked it all at the restart to try and take the win, but overcooked his approach and went off at turn one, getting the same number of points as his title rival. It stays as we were in the drivers’ title, but it mitigated the damage, and showed the importance of the ‘other’ driver in the team.

Formula 1 in the past had some brilliant members in the supporting cast. The likes of Eddie Irvine, David Coulthard - and the quintessential support driver - Rubens Barrichello who were more than capable of winning races on their own, but almost acted as bassists in a band, preferring to enhance the spotlight, rather than soaking in it themselves. And it’s a huge responsibility that not everyone gets right. Some get greedy and eventually want centre stage and some get overwhelmed and over-exposed by it, showing that they weren’t ready, or good enough.

The latter is the problem Red Bull have had for the past couple of years. Here’s a look at Max Verstappen against his teammate since he has been with the senior team.

The yellow line shows the net number of higher finishes between Verstappen and his teammate. You can see Ricciardo pushed him to a new level before the Australian’s final year in 2018. 

From there, a combination of Gasly, Alex Albon and Perez shows that Verstappen has tended to dominate his teammate. Albon didn’t manage to win a race, showing that while he’s an exciting racer, he was perhaps overawed and not quite ready for the spotlight, forcing Red Bull to make a change that may be beginning to feel somewhat justified.

The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was the first time the Mexican had finished ahead of his teammate, and the first time it had happened to Verstappen since Mexico 2019 (retirements excluded). But what a crucial time to do it. Those 25 points, and what was a 50-point swing in preventing Hamilton from scoring, keeps Red Bull at the top of the constructors’ championship as the season moves onto France.

The other problem second drivers have is that sometimes, they get happy enough to stay as number two drivers without progressing to championship contenders. The most damning thing that can be said about Valtteri Bottas is how happy Lewis Hamilton is to have him alongside him.

In Baku, Bottas was nowhere, languishing outside the points for the entire race and never threatening the leading runners. The under-pressure Finnish driver is having a poor year, and is yet to threaten the world title standings in the way Hamilton ever did.

This graph compares title-winners with their teammate that season. 2016 is an immediate outlier and shows just how amazing the Hamilton-Rosberg battle was. Hamilton, in this case the ‘other’ driver, finished above Rosberg 10 times, and only finished over five places behind Rosberg once (salvaging six points in China after starting from the back). Compare that with Bottas since he joined Mercedes. From 2017-2020, he’s won eight races, but he’s also finished at least five places behind Hamilton on the same number of occasions. Considering Hamilton’s 10 in 2016 alone, it really shows that the second Mercedes could be doing so much more.

The graph shows this. From the introduction of the hybrid era, Hamilton has only failed to beat his teammate once, and even then in 2016, he collected 49.6% of Mercedes’ points that season. While 2019 saw a small resurgence for Bottas, he seems to have taken a couple of steps back in 2020 and 2021, and it looks increasingly likely that he is on his way out from the champions.

George Russell is the obvious replacement who is waiting in the wings, and it would be a fascinating battle to watch him go toe-to-toe with Hamilton, demonstrating the other wonderful element of having a strong teammate… an internal battle for the title.

It was a Mercedes masterclass in 2016, and there have been several examples of two drivers racing for the same team at the top. Senna-Prost in 1989, Hill-Villeneuve to a lesser extent in 1996. While a multi-team rivalry is always welcome, and Azerbaijan proved that with three different constructors on the podium, and six different teams in the top six, the added drama an internal battle at the top brings could be just what F1 needs. 

That battle lower down the order is always quite fun too. At the start of the season, the most highly-anticipated battle was at McLaren, with Lando Norris being joined by Daniel Ricciardo, who is no stranger to inter-team drama. It hasn’t quite materialised yet, with both highly-driven racers getting on with each other and letting the other through when needed. 

Other than the Mercedes (54 points), with six races gone, the 40-point gap between Norris and Ricciardo is the biggest on the grid and shows that the former Red Bull man isn’t quite getting what Norris is getting out of his car. There’s further evidence of the second car’s importance in the midfield, with Ferrari having just a 10-point gap between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz - the lowest of the eight teams who have scored points so far. As their recovery continues, the Italian giants are third in the constructors, despite Sainz’s second in Monaco being the only podium so far for them this season.

For now, it’s still Verstappen vs Hamilton, but the role and character of the driver in the second car is more crucial than ever.

🏎️ PREVIOUSLY THIS SEASON:

🇲🇨 Round 5: The enjoyment of a genuine three-way battle

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

🇪🇸 Round 4: Getting out-thought if not outfought

🇵🇹 Round 3: Portimão and the benefits of a rule change

🏁 The pros and cons of sprint qualifying

🇮🇹 Round 2: Max Verstappen and the Italian curse

🇧🇭 Round 1: Bahrain and comparing qualifying pace with 2020

🔮 Four odd predictions for F1 2021