An explosive Formula 1 driver market set up a quintet of big moves for 2021 involving five of the top six teams.
Sebastian Vettel, Daniel Ricciardo, Carlos Sainz and Sergio Perez have all changed teams this season, while two-time world champion Fernando Alonso returns to the grid.
The five drivers had different off-seasons and went into pre-season testing with different levels of preparation, but the three days in Bahrain spent driving their 2021 cars in (or close to) anger were always going to be the most important aspect of their respective adaptations.
But which of these five major signings looks most ready to make an immediate impact?
5. SEBASTIAN VETTEL (ASTON MARTIN)
117 laps, 20th-fastest
At the back of the queue is Sebastian Vettel. A difficult pre-season is usually defined by slow laptimes and low mileage: and Vettel’s 2021 pre-season ticks both those boxes, as he was the slowest of the regular drivers to set a laptime and also completed the least mileage too.
Obviously, one is related to the other, as his lack of mileage meant he didn’t do any performance running. So Vettel is not really slow in the new Aston Martin – we actually don’t know how quick or happy he is. But he is underprepared.
He’s openly admitted that he’s about 100 laps short of where he wants to be, and has been open in how much there is to learn. In addition to being in a new team and learning a new car, he is also learning a new power unit for the first time. And after being in the unique Ferrari setting for so long, adapting to his new world will take time.
“It’s just getting to know the people, that’s one thing, just to understand what they mean,” says Vettel.
“The steering feels different, because it’s a different unit. Obviously every Formula 1 car has a power steering but every power steering is set up slightly differently, so it gives you a different impression because ultimately when you drive you’ve got the wheel in your hands and that’s the feedback you get so that’s one.
“The car is a different philosophy, it drives a bit differently, wants to be driven differently. It’s a different power unit. So without going into detail because I don’t think it’s fair to compare in public, these things are different and take a bit of getting used to.
“It’s a different environment inside the car as well, just in terms of comfort, pedals are feeling a bit different, the seat is a little bit different. So, small stuff, but the amount of all those small things put together cumulatively [adds up].”
It’s worth remembering that unlike three of the other four drivers in this list, Vettel didn’t get any old-car running prior to testing either. He just helped shake the AMR21 down. So he started that process on the backfoot and testing was not as productive as he’d have liked.
Objectively, Vettel is worse off. The learning curve will be steep for him in the opening races. And he is the least ready of any of the drivers switching teams.
4. SERGIO PEREZ (RED BULL)
166 laps, 8th-fastest
Sergio Perez is probably the most cautious-sounding of all of the drivers switching teams despite his on-track preparations being quite extensive.
His learning process has been augmented by a 2019 car program two days in the RB15 at Silverstone, on the Grand Prix circuit as well, so there’s been plenty of running, plenty of opportunity to get used to the team, the different ways of working.
It means that the pre-season test was a continuation of a process that had already started. So he should be further along when it comes to team processes and operations. Even if Perez is not the most comfortable of this bunch on-track, a lot of the important background work has probably been mastered.
He had a decent test too, with plenty of mileage, and understandably looked a lot better as that mileage was accrued.
It all came together a little bit more the longer the test went on. Perez did a very large amount of running on day two, and got down to some set-up work on day three, which is important as he acclimatises to the different tools that are available at Red Bull and to how the car reacts to changes where the Racing Point of last year, and the cars that he has driven for the last few years, would have done differently.
But Perez still thinks it’ll be five proper races before he feels like he’s on top of everything in the team. So he is, by his own admission, not expecting to go to the first race in Bahrain and be at 100%, delivering everything the car’s capable of.
“I still have a lot of things to learn in the car to get the maximum out of it,” he says. “But the best I can do is just to be patient, and then take the first races as they come.
“I’m sure as the season progresses, I will get more on top of things in the team. For now I just have to be patient and together with my engineers we just have to keep working very hard.”
3. CARLOS SAINZ (FERRARI)
192 laps, 3rd-fastest
Ferrari’s new signing is also expecting to still be “going through my learning curve into the first few races”, but the impression Carlos Sainz gives off is more convincing than Perez, who seems to legitimately expect to have a slow start to the season.
Sainz drove for Ferrari back in January, at Fiorano, but he admitted that there is only so much you can learn from those experiences. The cars have moved on quite a lot in his case – as the 2018 Ferrari is even less relevant than Perez running in the 2019 Red Bull, because the former was built to slightly different aero rules.
However, something Sainz was able to do was spend a lot of time in Maranello over the winter. He’s been ultra-keen to embed himself and to make sure that he was prepared as possible and says he’s been welcomed with open arms at Ferrari, while team boss Mattia Binotto has pointed out that Sainz has got on well with Charles Leclerc, which has helped Sainz’s adaptation.
That meant Sainz already arrived at the test “as prepared as I could arrive, given the situation, and I feel like from lap one I was on top of the steering wheel, of the switches, of knowing what we wanted to test”.
“I felt on top of the basic stuff – now it’s time to challenge the car and little by little try to find its tricks, where the last two or three tenths are, where is the limit of the car,” he said at the end of day one. Which explains why he was a little bit scruffy when he first got behind the wheel.
That did improve as the test went on, and Sainz ended it with Ferrari’s fastest time too. So he obviously got a little bit of performance running in at the end, which would have been useful for exploring the limits of the car further.
How close Sainz got to discovering those “last two or three tenths” is difficult to say. The long run that he did on the final day was good, so he looks like a driver who is getting close to where he wants to be.
2. FERNANDO ALONSO (ALPINE)
206 laps, 10th-fastest
Fernando Alonso is in a different position to everybody else on this list because he was actually working with his new team in the second half of last year.
He did a filming day in the 2020 Renault, he did a decent test program in the 2018 Renault, and then at the end of the year he drove the 2020 car again properly in the Abu Dhabi post-season test. He was also embedded in the team, initially remotely and then trackside as well. So Alonso had a head start on all of his colleagues who had a big move for 2021.
This is offset by two things. The first is that he wasn’t racing last year and hasn’t raced in Formula 1 for the last two years, so he’s not quite as race sharp as the others. He’ll point out that he has been doing other stuff and has become a better driver in the meantime, but he hasn’t been doing it in Formula 1.
The other thing is that he wasn’t actually able to be with the team immediately before pre-season because he had a two week period where he’d had a cycling crash in Switzerland, had to undergo surgery and then rest before he could even start training. He wasn’t even able to participate in the team’s launch.
So while Alonso did get into the simulator just before testing, he didn’t carry as much momentum through the off-season as he could have done. That was a small setback, nothing that has really had any sort of tangible negative impact, just something that means he could have arguably been in an even better position.
But on track, Alonso – even with a couple of titanium plates in his jaw – looks like his old self. He seems dialed in, ready to go, with the same confidence and aggression behind the wheel as he had before. He talked about still needing to “tick some boxes” on the final day, but with priority given to racking up the laps on harder compound tyres, this seemed a productive test for him and Alpine – which looks well-prepared for the new season.
Ultimately, Alonso has an advantage in that he’s been catching up with an old friend rather than starting a brand new relationship. He looks very much like he will be very near the top of his game immediately – but even Alonso admits that, after some time out, he may be catching up in the first few races.
1. DANIEL RICCIARDO (McLAREN)
173 laps, 7th-fastest
The best way to describe Ricciardo’s situation with McLaren is he doesn’t look like a driver who has changed teams. It seems very easy, and seeing him with McLaren feels familiar – it feels right, like he’s been there a long time.
Ricciardo used his time in the McLaren Technology Centre through February really well to feel comfortable in the team. He’s talked about wanting to make sure that every meeting he goes into, every room he’s going to be in, he’s listened to and taken seriously.
He was then very happy to then just get behind the wheel and focus on the driving, and when he did that it was seamless. He had a good test with plenty of mileage, and seemed to gel with the car well. McLaren had a faultless introduction to its new life with Mercedes power, so both driver and team look raring to go.
There are a few things he’s still adjusting to, especially the braking. This was the case back in 2019 with his switch to Renault too. But he’s hoping he’ll be able to pull off his patented divebomb moves before too long.
Ricciardo openly admits he will probably not be at 100% for the first race, in terms of extracting absolutely everything that the car and the team have to offer. But he looks damn close.
“In terms of a race weekend and dialling into strategic stuff with the team and going through a race simulation, I’m pretty comfortable,” Ricciardo says.
“I think it’s really just me getting comfortable within myself and the car. It naturally takes a bit of time but I don’t really want to give myself the time.”
Only Alonso seems at the same level. And the fact Ricciardo was coming into the team cold in January, whereas Alonso had that head start, is impressive.
It means Ricciardo’s had a steeper learning curve but has rapidly made his way to the same level. And given he doesn’t need to blow off the same cobwebs as the returning Alonso, we expect Ricciardo to be a potent weapon for McLaren from the very first race.
