Category: Formula One

And…. Finally the last seat is filled, Hamilton has signed for a seat at the dominant Mercedes team and who his been with since 2013, this comes after Mercedes team principal and CEO Toto Wolff announced he has extended his contract with them for a further 3 years.

The 7 time world champion will be aiming for his 8th world title this year hopefully beating Michael Schumacher’s 7 and making history even more, Hamilton will be setting the bench mark for the current f1 drivers and future f1 drivers, as he has now passed lots of Michael’s records and maybe one day someone might pass Hamilton’s.

Lewis has shown how talented he is in the past 13 years in Formula One, and also back in the carting days working his way up. He wanted to be the best he possibly could and make his family proud as they are the ones who helped his career including his dad working 3 jobs when he was younger to make it happen.

Last year Lewis used his platform to support BLM and have more diversity throughout the sport. He also does lots to show his fans/ social media followers what is going on in the world including what needs to be done to help with issues surrounding animals. With this link being one of them, https://www.instagram.com/p/CH8OJ1gsAei/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Lewis also got onto the Queen’s new year honour list after being backed by PM Boris Johnson and is going to be knighted and will now be Sir Lewis, he becomes the fourth F1 driver to be knighted after two fellow Britons, Sir Stirling Moss and Sir Jackie Stewart, and also Australia’s Sir Jack Brabham.

Silverstone have renamed their pit straights on the international circuit to Hamilton Straight, this comes after Lewis won his 7th world title. The British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) that owns Silverstone announced it at the Abu Dhabi Finale in December 2020. It’s the first time in Silverstone’s history that part of the circuit has been named after an individual. David Coulthard was the one to tell the 35 year old, with Coulthard saying “Lewis has become a huge part of this history and the directors of the Club and I felt there was no better way to mark this than to rename the iconic pits straight in recognition of his record-breaking achievements.”

I’m interested in seeing how this season plays out for him as it is the longest season ever in F1 and personally I want to see him win his 8th world championship and possibly his 9th to and make history once again.

So lately, there has been lots of talk about how F1 should change and what can make it more exciting, the two main ideas which have been spoke about a lot recently are reverse grid and a sprint race.

Firstly i have so many pros and cons of both but I do get why people are asking for it to be more exciting but then again why fix something thats not broken? There is still plenty of ‘drama’ on track, its just the fact that certain tracks don’t have the facilities for the drama as it could be quite dangerous if there was any…

So reverse grid has recently been shut down as an option to make F1 more exciting, last year it went to the teams however it failed to get support of all the teams in particular the dominant Mercedes. Personally it would off been good to see but also it is very predictable on some tracks where it is easy to over take it would be clear who would finish top three.

The next idea is sprint race which is very much still a contender, i am still 50/50 on this I think this could be a good idea and give everyone a fair chance – but will it then be the same results each time? How would F2 drivers feel about it. Some of the drivers who come up to F1 have done 2 years at formula two and then they are going to have basically the same weekends as they did. What would then make F1 different from the rest? I am so mixed opinioned abut this, I don’t think i will really know how i feel until they have one and to see how it goes.

Formula Ones new President and CEO Stefano Domenicali said they are trying to get the sprint race into the 2021 as an experiment and that there are discussions with the teams already on going. Also he said that he was also keen to find a way to give rookies more seat time in F1 machinery, especially because of the testing which has been shortened down. Now this I agree with I do think they need more time as a rookie to practice.

I am quite intrigued on what you guys think about a sprint race in Formula One, so I have made a poll to see your answers :)

So with the 2021 season starting in just under 8 weeks, it is a good time to look at the records which could be broken this year.

First of all the most obvious one would be Lewis Hamiltons 8th World Championship title. He equaled Michael Schumacher’s seven world championships last year and will more than likely go on to doing one better this year. Theres no real regulation changes this year, so there should be no reason why Hamilton and Mercedes will not dominate the season once again.

There are also two more records which have never been seen before for Lewis Hamilton this year. He is just two poles away from becoming the first man in history to record 100 Poles, as well as he is five wins away will ensure Hamilton becomes the first driver to take a century of Grand Prix wins. You would not want to bet against Hamilton not achieving these both in 2021. 2010 and 2011 are the only seasons in which he has failed to take at least two pole positions so far in his career, but since then he has won at least nine races in every season since 2014!

2020 was also the year Mercedes went on to win seven consecutive Constructors championship, that was a new record for most successive title wins for a team. If they win an eighth which is looking very likely there will be a new record for the most successive seasons in which an engine manufacturer has won. The current record for most successive wins for an engine manufacturer in Constructors championship is almost fifty years old, Ford Cosworth powered seven consecutive title wins between 1968 to 1974- the teams were Lotus, Tyrell and also McLaren during them years.

Fernando Alonso returning to F1 for 2021 with Alpine was a pretty big announcement last year, his long awaited return comes almost seven years since he took his last Grand Prix win in 2013 at the Spanish Grand Prix. If he wins during the 2021 season there will be a new record for the longest gap between two race victories, the current record is six years, six months and twenty eight days which is held by Riccardo Patrese. 2020 we had a few surprise wins, so anything can be possible in 2021, and if Alonso is right place at the right time I wouldn’t be too surprised to see him claim a 33rd Victory this season.

Lewis’ coronavirus infection led him to be unable to eclipse Michael Schumacher’s record of most laps led by the smallest of margins. Hamilton has led 5,099 laps in his career so far which is just twelve short of Michael Schumacher’s record of 5’111. Schumacher has held the record since overtaking Aryton Senna’s tally of 2,931 laps led. Between Schumacher and Hamilton they have led over 15% if all racing laps in F1 history.

And finally, Lewis Hamilton, Valtteri Bottas and Max Verstappen could set a new record for being the trio to have finished on the podium the most times together. The record currently belongs to 7 time champion Lewis Hamilton, one time champion Nico Rosberg and four time champion Sebastian Vettel, they shared the podium on fourteen occasions. Hamilton, Bottas and Verstappen only need one more time to equal that tally, in 2020 the trio finished in top three together on eight occasions alone in 2020.