I’ve been focused on the start of the W Series season in recent weeks, so the last time I wrote about Formula 1 for The Race was when Lewis Hamilton had just sailed down a Baku escape road after hitting the wrong button on his Mercedes!
Quite a lot has changed for Lewis since then, with his new contract on the plus side and a string of Max Verstappen wins on the downside.
It’s nice to see that we’ve actually got a championship fight on our hands, even if that isn’t music to the ears of Hamilton’s fans. At the moment it’s really swung in Verstappen’s favour with his 32-point lead after three wins in a row and a dominant victory in the Austrian Grand Prix.
I didn’t know what to expect from Hamilton in a situation where someone was really pushing him. I wouldn’t say he’s had it comfortable for the last seven years, but often at this stage, he’s had a good lead in the championship.
He actually seems quite relaxed about his position, he’s handling it well and he’s being quite honest. Some of his comments about what a steep uphill battle he’s facing could be a case of not getting his hopes up too much and talking Mercedes down in the hope they’ll strike back hard. But Mercedes will have a lot of information about both its own car and Red Bull’s, so it knows where it’s lacking.
It’s easier as a driver to be relaxed about this sort of thing if you know you’re maximising everything you can from your equipment. Whereas if Hamilton had crashed in four or five races, it would be a different matter because he’d know his deficit was his own fault.
But it’s clear he’s really wringing the neck of that Mercedes in the hope of closing the gap to Verstappen.
I was surprised he committed to a new two-year contract. I was expecting another one-year deal or even for him to go ‘you know what, this year will be my last year’. But maybe this is because he’s seen Mercedes struggling this year and he wants to get that eighth world title, he thinks ‘I’m going to hang around a couple more years yet’.
It looks like he’s got a bit more inspiration. It could have been a different story if he’d been miles up the road in the world championship again. This is giving him a chance to show how much more fight he’s still got in him.
Time for Mercedes to commit to Russell
With Hamilton committed, the next huge question is who’ll be his 2022 team-mate.
Valtteri Bottas is great back-up at the moment. Like the second Red Bull seat, it’s not an easy role.
But George Russell is a fantastic driver. As a British racing driver and someone who always backs young talent, I’d love to see him get that seat.
I still think Bottas has got a long career in F1 ahead of him elsewhere. But it’s down to whether Toto Wolff can see that Russell can still do that role of helping Hamilton right now while being the right person for the long-term future.
Or maybe Hamilton will end up supporting Russell! We saw Russell vs Bottas in the same car in Bahrain last year and Russell was on top there. We haven’t seen a straight fight between Hamilton and Russell in the same car yet. It could be an interesting battle.
It’s a really tough decision. But I’d be surprised if George is not in the Mercedes next year.
Mercedes will want Bottas to still play ball and to help Hamilton. Maybe that will make them dangle the carrot a little bit and hold off announcing any decision.
It’s a tough position for Bottas, not knowing where you’re going to be next year, hearing all these rumours. As hard as you try not to, it can be easy to get drawn into it all mentally.
I suspect if he was told George has got the seat, it would make him fell a bit less favourable if the team asks him to help Hamilton.
I don’t think he’d be unprofessional, but we have seen examples where he’s been more reticent about being the wingman and looked after his own interests – there was a little bit of that at Sochi last year.
Norris is outstanding, but don’t write off Ricciardo
It’s brilliant that as we head into the British Grand Prix with 140,000 fans attending, three home drivers are in such strong form. Lando Norris is really proving what he’s capable of.
It could have been hard for him having a team-mate like Daniel Ricciardo, who’s been strong everywhere else he’s been.
But Lando is so at home in that McLaren and doing an outstanding job. He had times of being very dominant in the junior ranks, but I never expected to see this much of a gap between him and Ricciardo.
It’s really only the last few races, though. If you look at qualifying results earlier in the season, Daniel’s been close to or ahead of Lando.
It’s the street circuits and Austria where the gap got big as the slow corners have exacerbated Ricciardo’s difficulties under braking and on turn-in while he’s trying to get his driving style to work with how the McLaren behaves. The braking zones at Turn 1 and Turn 3 in Austria, if you don’t get those right you’re going to lose so much time on the long straights that follow.
It’s really not easy to change driving style, especially given Ricciardo’s probably used that style for his whole F1 career so far. But he’s not telling the team to change how it works or change all its set-ups for him. He’s being professional and recognising that Norris is showing the McLaren can be quick as it is and it’s on Daniel to adapt. He seems open to making the changes he needs to in himself.
Their set-ups are probably always going to be different because you can’t making driving styles completely identical and there are a lot of things you can adjust on a Formula 1 car. But it’s totally possible that the overall design concept of the McLaren simply suits the way Lando drives more than how Daniel drives.
Set-up changes could help that but it’s likely to be the things they can’t change 100% at the circuit or mid-season are going to be more in favour of Lando.
Ricciardo knows the car is quick. It would probably be easier for him to cope with this gap if Lando wasn’t so close to the front.
He has been around a long time, he’s had tough experiences before. Verstappen coming straight in at Red Bull and winning on his debut for the team was one, and there were other spells when Max seemed to have the pace advantage there. But Ricciardo always fought back. He’ll have learned a lot of things mentally from those experiences.
He seems to have the team around him and to enjoy actually working with McLaren. You’d raise question marks if it seemed like he wasn’t enjoying his time being part of the team. You’d ask what else was going on there.
Silverstone might actually favour his driving style. You’ve only got a couple of stop-start corners. The rest, they fly through. The gap at McLaren could change this weekend.
Taking on my protege in W Series
I’ll be racing on the support bill at the British GP too, and this time I’ll be joined on the W Series grid by Abbi Pulling, who is one of the drivers I coach.
She’s one of the championship’s reserve drivers while focusing on her British Formula 4 season – where she’s sixth in the points with two podiums so far.
We’ll be doing some work on the simulator together, I’ll pass on some knowledge and I’ll still help, but once I’m at the circuit I’ll have plenty of my own stuff to be focusing on. I’ve made her aware that I’m not there to help her this time!
She knows, she’s excited. It’s the first British Grand Prix she’s attended at all so she’s buzzing to be racing on an F1 weekend again, after she had a one-off in the Formula Renault Eurocup at Imola last year.
18-year-old @BritishF4 frontrunner @AbbiPulling will make her @WSeriesRacing debut in next weekend's #BritishGP support round.
Pulling is the protege of our columnist @alicepowell and it'll be the first time they've raced each other bar a kart race in which they collided! pic.twitter.com/XzRZcOJaSQ
— The Race (@wearetherace) July 8, 2021
She deserves this opportunity, she’s worked hard and I’ll be proud to have her on the grid with me.
I’ve told her she hasn’t got anything to lose. It’s potentially just a one-off. There’s no pressure on her, no championship to fight for, she doesn’t have to be fixated on scoring points, she just has to try the best she can. That’s a nice position to be in.
I want her to just relish this opportunity. She won’t have many opportunities like this of being in a zero-pressure situation again, so she needs to make sure she enjoys it!
After winning the season-opening race at the Styrian GP, I had car problems through the Austrian GP weekend and was still struggling with the rear locking. Hopefully that will be rectified for Silverstone, as we’ve got a bit of work to do to get back in front in the championship now.
The third round of the 2021 W Series season at Silverstone is live on Channel 4 this Saturday from 13:05 BST.
