F1’s cease/begin starting to the season will really feel like a distant reminiscence after the subsequent two race weekends with Portugal and Spain going back-to-back.
The scene of Lewis Hamilton’s record-breaking 92nd F1 win final season, Portimao hosts spherical three of an intriguing 2021 season.
Mercedes have been snug victors on the final go to to Portugal however Pink Bull has stepped up as a title contender and it’ll be Max Verstappen seeking to make it two-in-a-row on Sunday after his victory at Imola.
Workforce boss Toto Wolff believes that Pink Bull has let his workforce off the hook after the opening two rounds, saying that to be main each championships is a “get out of jail free card” contemplating the workforce’s relative performances. Will Verstappen and co punish them this weekend with a one-two?
There are many query marks nonetheless hanging round from the winter break too. How will the team-mates of the title protagonists get on? Can world champions Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel lastly present their high quality after robust begins to the season? Will there be any shocks within the midfield as Ferrari and McLaren look set to go head-to-head for the most effective of the remainder honours?
Right here are some things to regulate all through the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix weekend.
Temperatures
It’s admittedly a small pattern measurement however the brand new Mercedes seems to be like its solved the problems the workforce used to have with overcooking its tyres. Sadly for the Brackley and Brixworth bunch, it has swung the opposite method and the W12 doesn’t hearth the tyres up in addition to its closest rival in Pink Bull.
The difficulty was evident at Imola, as each Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas solely began setting first rate lap instances after a handful of laps lagging behind these round them, as Verstappen flew into a snug 5sec lead and Bottas slummed round within the backside half of the highest 10.
As soon as Hamilton had fired up his tyres, he ate into the Pink Bull lead however it took the primary stint and worn ‘slicktermediates’ to take action. In dry situations, that isn’t a luxurious the Mercedes driver may have in opposition to his title rival and will settle the race if the Dutch driver can escape up the street from the beginning.
Climate situations in Portimao for this weekend are fortunately rather a lot hotter for the world champions, so there may not be the identical points dealing with them this time round.
It’d even tip the scales into Mercedes benefit. A hotter monitor floor may reduce the warm-up required and put the W12 proper within the window to set the tempo from the off. Whereas over a single lap it’s probably Pink Bull nonetheless has the measure of its competitors, a Hamilton-led Merc cost on Sunday is just not out of the query in any way.
Watch this area.
Double dose of DRS
The Flip 5 braking zone may flip into an overtaking level with the brand new DRS zone
JORGE GUERRERO/POOL/AFP through Getty Pictures
Whereas the principle straight has a shorter DRS zone than final 12 months, there’s an extra zone down the hill resulting in Flip 5. The DRS zone on the beginning/end line has been decreased by 165m which could make overtaking into the sweeping first right-hander slightly extra sophisticated than final 12 months when passes have been a bit too simple.
The secondary zone is a pleasant addition although and will open up the chance to a different overtaking zone into a difficult braking zone into 5. The fiddly remaining sector of Portimao could be too tight for switchbacks and positional swaps however there ought to be loads to regulate for the primary half of the lap.
Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez confirmed simply how shut issues can get combating for place final 12 months. The pair have been inseparable for your complete first half of the lap, buying and selling place backwards and forwards out and in of corners. The additional DRS zone ought to hopefully promote extra of the identical this 12 months.
Carlos Sainz & Yuki Tsunoda
Arguably the 2 stand-outs of the 2 races of 2021 have been Carlos Sainz and Yuki Tsunoda. The latter has began his F1 life with some gusto, pushing with an old-fashioned win or bin type that has granted him a good quantity of fanfare.
However Tsunoda hasn’t but earned a end result as robust because the AlphaTauri automotive seems to be actually able to, although there’s extra to return from each automotive and driver and that’s an thrilling prospect.
Tsunoda himself has stated he’ll strategy the Portuguese GP weekend with a barely completely different mentality to the earlier two races, aiming to place collectively a clear weekend from begin to end relatively than assault from the off.