Tag: red bull

Full list of Teams and Drivers line-up for 2021 F1 Season

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The 2021 Formula One season will be the 72nd year of the Formula One World Championship and it will have 23 Grand Prix held around the world where the drivers and teams will compete for the World Drivers’ Champion and World Constructors’ Champion, respectively.

This year’s calendar consists of twenty-three races, considering the reinstatement of the suspended Sao Paulo Grand Prix contract and of course, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which hampered the championship in a big way last season. The first race of the season is set to be the Bahrain Grand Prix at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir on March 28 and the last is supposed to be the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.

There have been some changes to teams too, with McLaren moving to a Mercedes engine from Renault. Team name changes include Racing Point becoming Aston Martin and Renault will now be known as Alpine.

With loads of team and driver changes, we take a look at the final line-up of the 10 teams and 20 drivers taking part in this year’s competition:

MERCEDES

Lewis Hamilton – 44

Valtteri Bottas – 77

Last year’s constructors champion will continue with the same driver line-up of Britain’s Hamilton and Finland’s Bottas as they chase another successful season at the top. Mercedes won their seventh Constructors’ Championship last year, thus, breaking the record for most consecutive constructors’ championships.

Hamilton won the championship last season, his sixth with Mercedes and seventh overall, while Bottas came second.

RED BULL

Max Verstappen – 33

Sergio Perez – 11

Red Bull finished second last year in the constructors championship and will now look to improve on their performance and give Mercedes a run for their money this season. They have made one change in their line-up with Mexico’s Perez coming in place of Alex Albon.

Verstappen was very fast last season and will look to go head-to-head with Mercedes boys again, while Perez, who was dropped by Racing Point, finished fourth behind Max.

FERRARI

Charles Leclerc – 16

Carlos Sainz – 55

Big and bold changes were made by the Italian giants as they decided to let go of their long-serving driver in Sebastian Vettel and pursue with two youngsters in Monaco’s Charles Leclerc and new boy Carlos Sainz of Spain. Ferrari finished a lowly sixth last season.

While Leclerc showed enough promise to lead for Ferrari, he finished eighth last season while Sainz, who was racing for McLaren, was sixth on the charts.

MCLAREN

Daniel Ricciardo – 3

Lando Norris – 4

This will be a fun team to watch with both Ricciardo and Norris being good drivers. McLaren had a sensational season last year and finished third behind Mercedes and Red Bull and will look to do the same with two fast exciting drivers.

Britain’s Norris, who is in his third season in the grid, was ninth last year, while Australia’s Ricciardo was fifth on the driver’s standings.

ASTON MARTIN

Sebastian Vettel – 5

Lance Stroll – 18

Racing as ‘Racing Point’ last year, the rebranded Aston Martin team will look to better their fourth place in this year’s championship. For this, they will have a newly acquired four-time drivers champion from Germany — Sebastian Vettel and Canada’s Stroll.

Vettel, who was with Ferrari last season, had a torrid run and finished 13th, while Stroll was 11th in the standings.

ALPINE

Fernando Alonso – 14

Esteban Ocon – 31

Another rebranded team. Known as Renault last year, they are lining up with the returning two-time world-champion from Spain Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon of France. Alpine finished fifth last year and will look to go up from here instead of staying in the midfield.

Ocon finished 12th last season in the standings, while Alonso is returning to the grid once again after 2 years. He left the grid in 2018.

ALPHATAURI

Pierre Gasly – 10

Yuki Tsunoda – 22

AlphaTauri finished seventh last year and will be represented by France’s Gasly and the young Japanese Tsunoda, who was promoted from Formula 2 by Red Bull.

Gasly finished 10th last season in the standings, while Tsunoda will be having his first season at the top level.

ALFA ROMEO

Kimi Raikkonen – 7

Antonio Giovinazzi – 99

The team based out of Switzerland has made no changes and will be going into the season with the same line-up for the third season in a row. They finished 8th last season.

Finland’s Raikkonen and Italy’s Giovinazzi finished 16th and 17th respectively last season.

HAAS

Nikita Mazepin – 9

Mick Schumacher – 47

Haas, who finished ninth last season, will have more eyes on them because of Mick Schumacher, who is the son of seven-time world champion and F1 legend, Michael Schumacher.

Haas has dropped both their drivers of last season (Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen) and will now go with the Russian Mazepin and German Schumacher — both graduating from Formula 2.

WILLIAMS

Nicholas Latifi – 6

George Russell – 63

Canada’s Latifi and Britain’s Russell will be racing for Williams for the second season in a row, despite them finishing at the bottom of the pile last year.

In the driver’s standings, Latifi was 20th, while Russel finished 18th.

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Max Verstappen Fastest in Testing, Mercedes Have Work To Do

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Formula One teams wrapped up three days of pre-season testing in Bahrain on Sunday with Max Verstappen fastest for Red Bull and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda close behind in a one-two for Honda-powered cars.

Mercedes and seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, recognised they had plenty of work to do before the season starts at the same Sakhir circuit on March 28.

Mexican Sergio Perez, Verstappen’s new team mate, had been top of the morning session with a best lap of one minute 30.187 seconds on soft tyres. Verstappen took over after lunch and produced a best time of 1:28.960.

It was the second time he had topped the end of day timesheets after setting the pace on Friday.

“In general I would say the car feels good and I’m looking forward to going racing,” said Verstappen, winner of the last race of 2020.

The Dutch youngster said before he got in the car that he thought Mercedes were still the favourites but, if so, the dominant champions of the past seven years were hiding any advantage.

Hamilton was only fifth fastest and just quicker than compatriot George Russell who did nearly three times as many laps in the Williams — 157 to Hamilton’s 54. Sunday was Russell’s first day in the car.

The older Briton seemed to struggle to get a stable lap together, spinning late on.

“We’ve had issues in recent years with pace in winter testing and managed to make good progress before the first race but we may have our work cut out this time,” said Mercedes trackside engineering head Andrew Shovlin.

He said the car was more predictable on high fuel loads but “we can see from the data we’ve collected over the last few days that on race pace, we’re not as quick as Red Bull.”

EYE-CATCHING TSUNODA

Tsunoda was the name that caught the eye with the Japanese rookie just 0.093 slower than Verstappen as he completed 91 laps for the Red Bull sister team.

Ferrari, gathering strength again after their worst season in 40 years, had Carlos Sainz third overall despite an hydraulics issue after Charles Leclerc was second in the morning. The pair managed 159 laps between them.

“When we were here last year in Bahrain for the race and for qualifying we have been very slow on the straights,” said Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto.

“Now… I think at least on the straights the speed is alright. It doesn’t seem to be such a disadvantage as it was last year.”

Kimi Raikkonen, in the Ferrari-powered Alfa Romeo, did more laps than anyone — 165.

Valtteri Bottas opened the session for Mercedes and was seventh fastest when he handed over to Hamilton, with 84 laps completed.

The Finn felt the team had made up ground after a difficult opening Friday when he had managed only six laps due to a gearbox problem.

“I feel like we made a decent recovery,” Bottas told reporters.

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Red Bull to Use Honda-based Formula One Engines from 2022

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Red Bull have formed their own powertrain company and will continue to race from 2022 with engines using Honda technology, the Formula One team said on Monday. Honda, who are engine partners to Red Bull Racing and Italy-based sister team AlphaTauri, announced last year they would be leaving the sport as a power unit manufacturer at the end of 2021 to focus on zero-emission technology.

Monday’s announcement comes after Formula One teams and manufacturers agreed last week to “freeze” power unit development from the start of 2022. The agreement with Honda covers the duration of the freeze, which will run until the sport introduces the next generation of power units in 2025.

“We were understandably disappointed when Honda made the decision to leave the sport as an engine manufacturer…but we are grateful for their support in facilitating this new agreement,” said Red Bull team boss Christian Horner. “Honda has invested significantly in hybrid technology to ensure the supply of competitive power units to both teams.”

Red Bull Powertrains Limited will be based at the Red Bull factory in Milton Keynes, England.

Both Red Bull-owned teams won races last year and Honda, who have restored their reputation after a dismal previous stint with McLaren, have promised to develop their engines further before they depart.

Red Bull are hoping to make a serious title challenge to Mercedes’s long domination of the V6 turbo hybrid era this year with Dutch youngster Max Verstappen and experienced Mexican Sergio Perez.

AlphaTauri have Frenchman Pierre Gasly, who won at Monza last year, and Honda-backed Japanese rookie Yuki Tsunoda in their lineup.

The engine freeze was a vital part of the puzzle for the former champions, who had said they would not have been able to afford the costs of continuing to develop the Honda power unit to stay competitive.

The alternative would have been Renault, whose engines powered Red Bull to four successive drivers’ and constructors’ championships with Sebastian Vettel from 2010-13 at the end of the V8 era.

Red Bull fell out with Renault before switching to Honda engines for 2019 and were reluctant to go back to the French manufacturer, who supply only their own team and would have capacity.

The move means Formula One will still have four different engines competing next year — Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault and Red Bull’s.

“The establishment of Red Bull Powertrains Limited is a bold move by Red Bull but it is one we have made after careful and detailed consideration,” said Red Bull’s motorsport adviser Helmut Marko in a statement.



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