2021 should be an interesting year for Mercedes F1 and thus for the entire Formula 1 starting line-up. The team did not win the season opener Bahrain Grand Prix in the typically dominant way most of us probably expected. Merc’s Lewis Hamilton was lucky when an illegal outside pass from Red Bulls Max Verstappen forced the Dutch driver to vacate his position. At this point, his tires no longer had the grip to race at Hamilton again.
The perception of many fans – and certainly Mercedes itself, given the way team boss Toto Wolff has spoken lately – is that the Silver Arrows team doesn’t have the fastest car. During its recent dominance, Mercedes has maintained the habit of playing underdogs when things looked a little suboptimal – and then went unchallenged for the championship. So Wolff’s downfall should be taken with a grain of salt.
But it is clear from the start that this season is likely to be more of a challenge than the previous two, and that Mercedes is facing challenges that have not existed for a while. One of them is figuring out when to stop pouring time and money into this year’s car and focus on the 2022 chassis.
Wolff says this was a “tricky decision” for his team Motorsport.com::
“It will be the same for all teams to balance the resources for the car and the engine in 2021 and that for the year 2022,” Wolff told Motorsport.com.
“It’s clear that you can’t afford not to appear in ’21. But the 22 regulations will also remain in force for a few years. Once you start with a deficit, it is very difficult to catch up. So it will take a while for performance to converge.
“In that regard, these are difficult decisions that we regularly evaluate.”
The question of whether the investments in the current season’s car should be weighed against that of the next season is a question for an F1 team every year. However, as Wolff says, the ramifications of that decision are far more powerful on the eve of major changes in technical regulations, as loomed in the distance for 2022. If you don’t prepare for the generation to come, you won’t just suffer from this first season under the new rules, you will spend years playing catch-up.
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We saw teams botch this crucial moment. In 2008, BMW Sauber halted progress on its 2008 car to focus on the 2009, immediately after taking a one-two at this year’s Canadian Grand Prix. Unsurprisingly, as the calendar progressed, the team was in pecking order. But all of this premature work did not help BMW 2009 to become a success. In fact, it continued to drop out of pace, and the German automaker announced mid-season that it was done with F1.
As Wolff himself said, he’s not the only team that has 2022 in mind. Every designer grapples with the same question. The difference in the case of Mercedes is that it probably didn’t expect to have to worry too much about 2021 before winter testing began. If this were another Gimme year, Hamilton could take an eighth title while engineers devote all their attention to ensuring that the Mercedes dynasty endures well into the next era of F1.
However, it doesn’t seem like it is sinking like that. And even if Hamilton, Wolff and Company lead Red Bull in the end, it probably won’t come without a bit of a fight. Welcome to the way the rest of F1 lives, Mercedes.
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