Bahrain GP 2021
Welcome to 2021 F1 season! Despite COVID-19 and all the implications it has had to all of us, F1 circus will be traveling around the globe, starting from Bahrain this weekend. The rules, and therefore the cars, have not changed significantly from 2020 so don’t expect any big surprises there. What has changed are the driver line-ups! My personal biggest excitement is Alonso returning to F1 with the team he won his two world championships. Although the team has been renamed from Renault to Alpine, many faces will be familiar to him.
Other than Alonso, we will see the name of Schumacher again as Michael’s son – Mick – is joining Haas F1 team alongside Nikita Mazepin. Will Schumacher get anywhere close to doing what his dad did? Hard to believe, but let’s see him on track first. Yuki Tsunoda will also be replacing Kvyat in Alpha Tauri. Vettel has left Ferrari and joined Racing Point, now named Aston Martin, with Perez going to Red Bull in the place of Albon hoping he can match Verstappen. Carlos Sainz got that place in the red car while Ricciardo will be Lando Norris’ teammate at McLaren. The world champions Mercedes has sticked to the same drivers. As the saying goes, don’t change a winning team.
Going to our predictions, the model has not seen the data of the winter testing so expect a few races before it can more accurately predict the results. As expected, the seven time world champion is expected to win the first race of the season. Further back, I’m looking forward to watching what Sergio Perez can do in a race-winning car and how Alonso’s experience outside F1 will translate into the track.
Starting from this season, I will also be providing some highlighted predictions, the power predictions, that you can see here.
| Driver | Qualifying Prediction | Actual Qualifying Result | Race Prediction | Actual Race Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamilton | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Verstappen | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Bottas | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Norris | 10 | 7 | 7 | 4 |
| Perez | 4 | 11 | 11 | 5 |
| Leclerc | 12 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
| Ricciardo | 5 | 6 | 4 | 7 |
| Sainz | 9 | 8 | 8 | 8 |
| Tsunoda | 17 | 13 | 14 | 9 |
| Stroll | 6 | 10 | 10 | 10 |
| Raikkonen | 8 | 14 | 13 | 11 |
| Giovinazzi | 13 | 12 | 12 | 12 |
| Ocon | 15 | 16 | 15 | 13 |
| Russell | 16 | 15 | 17 | 14 |
| Vettel | 7 | 18 | 16 | 15 |
| Schumacher | 19 | 19 | 19 | 16 |
| Gasly | 11 | 5 | 6 | R |
| Latifi | 20 | 17 | 18 | R |
| Alonso | 14 | 9 | 9 | R |
| Mazepin | 18 | 20 | 20 | R |