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Racing back in America. Won't have to get up early to watch this one. Heard one pundit say that COTA is similar to Turkey. Austin should be pleasant weather will no rain.
If that is the case Mercedes will roll and it will be a damage limitation for RBR as the world championship swings back to Lewis.
With six races to go and a mere six points between the current World Champion and the challenger for the crown, there is all to fight for. Both drivers have thrilled us with a battle where each has given no track space for the other to run away with this championship. They have run each other off the track, crashed into each other and had bad races where they have squandered opportunities to streak ahead.
But these last six races shall be very unforgiving to any mistakes or failure to capitalize on low hanging fruit situations. It is tight in the points which only shows how brilliant Verstappen is as a driver and how incredibly formidable Hamilton is as an opponent even with a slightly slower car for most of the season. But the tales are different now, the Mercedes cars seem to have found their mojo and Redbull appear not to have the clear advantage they have enjoyed for most of the season. Unfortunately, they have not fully capitalized on their advantage and they go into the last six races with a Mercedes that is just as fast and faster on some tracks.
Hence, we shall see desperations ramp up further these last races as each driver would try their level best to deny the other any chances to get ahead. This is the sort of season that may be won by as few points as one to six points. And it all comes down to minute differences in the operational efficiencies of the combined team and driver performances. When we talk about efficiency, we would normally think Mercedes have this as an advantage, but this season we have seen some woeful mistakes from the incumbent constructors champion. The driver's championship is at risk mainly because of some of those mistakes. And they have been lucky that Redbull has had mistakes of their own that have made it possible for Mercedes to be where they are currently.
But now the stakes are so high, such that any mistakes or poor judgement [strategic or otherwise] or slippage in performance [ Off-day, DNF etc] would be very costly and could hand the championship title to the other.
l say, "may the best man and team combination win". Whichever way this season concludes, it is set to be a historic season that future generation of fans would give their left nut to be present [in this day and time] to witness in person. They would have to suffer our rhetorics of how this 2021 title fight was won and lost.
Make no mistake, THIS 2021 SEASON IS A GOLDEN SEASON. We would have to wait for another Hamilton or Schumacher to come along and run up the title ladder to the benchmark set by Hamilton for the possibility of this sort of scenario to repeat itself. One thing we have learnt over the years is to not say "it would never happen again". We shall seat back and watch the future unfold with anticipation.
RBR says Mercedes's newfound performance increases will seal the championship for Mercedes unless RB is able to find a way to gain their own performance increase. RB admitted they don't have a plan at this time.
COTA is typically a Hamilton and Mercedes track. But the Redbull would go well here. We can expect the mercs to be properly challenged here by the Redbull pair. If Verstappenn can manage a flawless run in Q3, he could challenge the Mercs for pole and possibly the win on sunday. That said, Hamilton is usually mighty at COTA. It would take something special to deny him pole and the win. We should not forget Bottas is in the mix as well and racing for himself these days.
Those are all good points. Those talking heads have been more wrong about their conjectures than right. There were some prior to practices starting in Turkey that Red Bull might do well on there - but changed their tune quickly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nitrodaze
Looking back 2 years ago Verstappen was respectable - so he might have a shot of putting pressure on Hamilton.
I just hope they sort out the contract for next year, as of now it's not in place. I'd hate to lose this track on the calender.
Unless RB have something new to offer, it looks like Merc has clawed back a lot of performance. I'd expect them to beat RB soundly at this and many of the remaining tracks. But.... I'm seriously doubting that RB will just sit back and do nothing. It's just a matter of what performance they can find at this point.
I still expect Merc to come out on top, but overall the cars have been close enough this year to make it a challenge. If not for driver errors, Lewis would be out in the lead quite a bit more, and the team has made some bad calls as well. With much less going wrong for them RB have still struggled to make any real advances in creating a large enough lead to allow them any breathing room.
Bagwan and his crystal ball might be right with what's going on this year!
Remember , Shifter , Aesop's money was on the turtle .
If the lowly Canuck saw it coming , then maybe the turtle did , too .
Mercedes in an interview said they surprisingly found bandwidth to work not only on the 2022 car, but the 2021 car.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bagwan
I like soda biscuits .Quote:
Originally Posted by F1nKS
Can you swim ?
FORMULA 1 ARAMCO UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2021 - PRACTICE 1
22 24 Oct 2021 Circuit of The Americas, Austin
https://www.formula1.com/en/results....ractice-1.html
FORMULA 1 ARAMCO UNITED STATES GRAND PRIX 2021 - PRACTICE 2
22 24 Oct 2021 Circuit of The Americas, Austin
https://www.formula1.com/en/results....ractice-2.html