2021 Abu Dhabi GP Preview

And so, it goes down to the wire in the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP. Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen are level on 369.5 points, and this is now a winner takes all race. The only fly in the ointment is that as Verstappen has won more races, if they both fail to score any points on Sunday, Verstappen would be Champion.

As the season reaches its climax, so the two main protagonists have come closer and closer on the track and in the driver’s championship standings. As the two fastest drivers in the two fastest cars, it is inevitable that the two will be in close proximity once again on Sunday. More wheel-to-wheel action, or a destruction Derby? Hopefully the former, but very possibly the latter.

Both drivers are getting paranoid that the stewards or race director are out to get them, that it is all so unfair. Losing the championship in the very last race of the longest ever season will be a crushing blow for one of them. So, we can’t expect a friendly, after you Claude, kind of race.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP: Remodelled Circuit

This will be the fourteenth Abu Dhabi GP but this year the circuit has been significantly remodelled. Six slow corners have been replaced with one hairpin which leads onto the very long straight. The slow corners at the start of sector three have been replaced with one long looping curve. The idea is to improve overtaking and also to make the lap quicker. It is expected to be around 10 seconds faster this year, which is a substantial difference. It means that past form on this track is of less value but should not be completely dismissed.

Like most tracks on the calendar since the start of the turbo-hybrid era, Abu Dhabi has been a Mercedes fortress. They have won six of the seven races and had three 1-2 finishes. A Mercedes has been on pole position for six of the last seven races here, with Verstappen’s pole last year breaking that run. Lewis Hamilton has won four of the seven and never finished worse than third. That third place was last year, in a race that was a dead rubber and while he was recovering from a Covid 19 infection. Verstappen won that race from pole position, and he has been on the podium for the last three years.

Track Should Suit Mercedes

Will the track modifications favour one team more than another? That is hard to say but taking out slow corners and speeding the track up hints that it will be a track that suits Mercedes even more than it did in the past. Half the lap is basically made up of flat-out straights followed by a more technical sector with many slow, 90-degree corners. We saw in last week’s Saudi Arabian GP that Red Bull were able to keep the Mercedes at bay in the curving corners. However, the Mercedes closed down the Red Bull on the long straights. This looks like it could be similar.

The fact that it will be possible to overtake with DRS on the long straights will make it hard for Red Bull to defend if they find themselves in the lead. If they are chasing, then they have the problem of it being very hard to overtake in the technical sector and being out gunned on the straights.

Recent form suggests that it will be Lewis Hamilton who wins on Sunday and takes yet another title. He has won four of the last seven races, including the last three in a row and the last two from pole position. A Mercedes has qualified on pole position in five of the last seven, Red Bull just once. The pole position driver has won the last six races in Abu Dhabi.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP: Not Looking Good For Max

It really doesn’t look good for Max Verstappen. It doesn’t look like he can win the race on pace. Yes, he should have started from pole in Jeddah, and over a flying lap he could do so this weekend. But staying ahead on a track which has been, and looks more so now, fairly power sensitive? That would be very difficult. Of course, being the last race of the season, the power units will be turned up to 11, or as far as the teams are prepared to risk a failure. That may allow Red Bull to close the gap a little if Mercedes are more worried about reliability.

Verstappen may need Hamilton to have a serious problem but that generally doesn’t happen. In his last 71 races, Hamilton has had one DNF, Monza this season when he and Verstappen collided. Which leads to the inevitable question. Will it all end up in a crash between the two title protagonists?

A repeat of the famous Senna – Prost incident in 1990? In what was effectively a championship decider, Senna drove into Prost, taking both cars out of the race and ensuring Senna was the World Champion. The FIA let him keep the title despite the fact that it was obvious that Senna had deliberately crashed to make sure he won the title. That would be unlikely to be the case in 2021.

Not That Simple

There would be appeals upon appeals and eventually the authorities would have to apportion blame and decide the winner that way. It is not just as simple as Verstappen taking Hamilton out and winning the title as a result. If it were that easy, I dare say he would have done it already. It can be argued that Verstappen did indeed try and take Hamilton out of the race in Jeddah last weekend. He was told to give Hamilton the place back having passed off the track, but the two came into contact when Verstappen slowed on the straight and Hamilton drove into the back of him.

I would say that was more a case of the two of them knowing that they didn’t want to go into the DRS activation zone first, and then get passed on the next straight. It was two drivers trying to be clever and getting completely mixed up.

If you believe that Verstappen will deliver a coup de grâce and take both cars out, you can get 12.00 with Ladbrokes for both to have a DNF. No doubt other firms will price something similar up as I suspect it will be requested many times.

Double DNF Bet Has Merit

It is not a bet without merit. It has happened before, but sometimes a Kamikaze attack doesn’t find the target. Michael Schumacher tried it with Villeneuve in the 1997 decider. However, his Ferrari didn’t inflict enough damage on the Canadian’s Williams. It was Schumacher who retired, and Villeneuve carried on to score four points and win the championship. Initially, the race stewards took no action against Schumacher. Then, two weeks later, he was excluded from the Championship and stripped of his second place.

Taking a bet of this kind not only depends on a crash that takes both cars out of the race but could also then be the subject of a steward’s ruling. The general rule with bookmakers is that the podium presentation is when the result becomes official, and the pay outs made. Any future appeals and the outcome thereof, are irrelevant. So long as they have the podium ceremony, the bet should be settled, but…….sometimes the bookies change the rules.

Potential Achilles’ Heel?

There is one potential Achilles’ Heel on the Mercedes which could give Red Bull some hope of a win on pure performance. The Abu Dhabi circuit is regarded as a rear limited track. Its lay out has high speed sectors where you want as little drag as possible, which suits Mercedes, followed by the fiddly, technical sector which suits the Red Bull’s better downforce levels. The challenge for Mercedes is not to arrive at the slower technical sectors with their rear tyres getting too hot to be effective in the sector which requires a lot of mechanical grip. The final sector sees a lot of braking followed by traction events out of the corners.

It is a little like Sau Paulo. Two high speed sectors with a slow speed technical sector in the middle. In Brazil, Hamilton won easily as while he was slower in the middle sector, it wasn’t by much and his power advantage in the other two sectors more than made up for it. The difference here is the nature of the slower sector.

Stop-Start Corners

In Brazil the slow sector is made up of slow curves which flow into each other. That requires the high drag high downforce which suits the Red Bull, but here in Abu Dhabi the slow sector is made up of stop/start 90-degree corners which demand good traction and is more demanding on the tyres. If Mercedes over cook their rear tyres (and they have had that problem before) in the fast sectors, they could suffer in the final sector with a lack of grip and more so than was the case in Brazil.

The slow sector will suit the Red Bull more than the Mercedes, but the big question is by how much? Will it be enough to offset their advantage in the fast sectors, and will they have significant tyre management problems over a race distance.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP: Sochi And Baku Form Unreliable

Looking for guidance from similar looking tracks takes us to Sochi in Russia and Baku in Azerbaijan. The problem with looking at Russia is that this year’s race was weather affected in both qualifying and the race. Verstappen also took a 20 place grid penalty and had to start at the back of the field. That he finished second is a positive, but the race was freakish and not an easy guide.

The Baku race was also a bit freakish thanks to the tyre failures which caused Verstappen to retire whilst heading for a win and the red flags which always muddy the waters. Hamilton qualified second at Baku and fourth at Sochi. So, his one lap pace was good if not great. Verstappen qualified third at Baku, but he didn’t set a time in Russia as he was starting last in any case. Verstappen’s race pace was better than Mercedes in Baku but it’s harder to say much about Russia. Norris and Sainz were the star performers that weekend.

Lewis Hamilton is the 1.62 favourite and Verstappen 3.20. It is hard to argue with those odds right now. With significant track changes, it is better to see some running and see if it looks like Mercedes are having any tyre problems before considering a bet on who will win the race. Pirelli are bringing their softest compounds this weekend and that may have some bearing on who the track will suit a little more.

All eyes, and TV cameras will be focused on the title race, but there will still be 18 other drivers taking part.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP: Battle For Fifth

The battle for fifth place in the driver’s championship sees Leclerc, Norris and Sainz separated by just 8.5 points. Norris and McLaren have lost their early and mid-season form. Norris has scored just five points in the last four races compared to thirty for Leclerc and twenty-six for Sainz.

Carlos Sainz is on a run of fourteen consecutive points scoring races, including eight top 6 finishes and two third places. This track looks like it should be quite favourable for Ferrari. They liked the 90-degree corners in Azerbaijan and Russia, getting a car on the front row at both venues, and while the track modifications aren’t entirely Ferrari friendly, it should be a decent venue for the red cars. Sainz has had two top six finishes here in the last three years and looks a backable price to do so again.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP Tip: 2 points Carlos Sainz to finish in the top 6 @ 1.80 with Hills, Skybet

Lando Norris performed well at both Baku and Sochi. He qualified on pole in Russia, ahead of our 101.00 shot Carlos Sainz in second, and the McLaren driver lead for most of the race before deciding to try and ride out the storm on slick tyres in the dying laps. That cost him his first victory and left Hamilton to pick up his 100th Grand Prix win. Ricciardo also had a good race in Russia, finishing fourth from fifth on the grid.

It would be ironic if while everyone is watching the Hamilton vs. Verstappen battle, we got a Ferrari vs. McLaren scrap for pole position. Ferrari were particularly strong in qualifying at both venues. However, McLaren’s recent drop in performance makes them harder to fancy.

Charles Leclerc qualified on pole in Baku but couldn’t quite turn it into a podium, finishing fourth. He had penalties in Russia and like Verstappen was starting from the back and he took no part in Q2. He finished third here in 2019 but that was helped by Bottas having to start from the back after taking a power unit penalty.

Leclerc is 6.00 to finish on the podium this weekend and I can see him having a good weekend. However, he has just the one podium finish in 2021 (Sainz has three). So, it may be more likely that he has his seventh fourth place of the season. He is just 1.50 to finish in the top 6 and Sainz looks better value in that market. I take Leclerc to be ‘best of the rest’ on Sunday.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP Tip: 1 point Charles Leclerc to win without the big four @ 3.25 with Ladbrokes

Alpine have been one of the most unpredictable teams of the season. Last weekend they looked excellent on Friday, were disappointing in qualifying, but very nearly got another podium on Sunday. An Alpine driver has finished best of the rest in the last two races and Alonso finished sixth in Baku and Sochi. It is hard to get too enthusiastic about them due to the fact that they don’t seem to know why their car is good on some days and not others, but they have been in decent form and Alonso looks reasonable value for a top six finish.

2021 Abu Dhabi GP Tip: 1 point Fernando Alonso to finish in the top six @ 4.00 with Betvictor

-JamesPunt