The 2021 Season

[Penfold]

No, I haven't lost all sense of time or gone completely mad (still just part way there), but from 2021 the historic & immeasurably evocative name of Racing Point will disappear from F1 to be replaced with Aston Martin: https://www.racefans.net/2020/01/31/racing-point-aston-martin-f1-team-2021-stroll/

[Chrill]

Oh no. Racing Point, the greatest team name to grace F1, is down for the count.

I wonder why not for 2020? Perhaps the other teams refused to agree to a name change.

[Penfold]

They want to use up their stock of pink paint.  Also, Aston's sponsorship deal with Red Bull doesn't finish until the end of this year. 

[Chrill]

Ah yes. The bulls.

[Chrill]

Mercedes signs long-term partnership with something called INEOS, rumoured to be about the same size as their Petronas deal. This implies that Mercedes is indeed staying in F1 past 2020:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mercedes-ineos-partnership-announced/4682646/

[Penfold]

INEOS is Jim Ratcliffe's rather large chemicals business (turnover estimated at $80 billion) and personal plaything; he's taken it down various other avenues, one of which is the upcoming INEOS Grenadier off-roader, described by Ratcliffe as the spiritual successor to Land Rover's original Defender.

As you say, Merc. signing this deal doesn't exactly scream that they're planning to leave F1 at the end of the year.

[Chrill]

Unless of course we will see INEOS F1 Team in 2021.[/conspiracy]

[Penfold]

The thought did flick through my mind.  He's already got a professional cycling team and a sailing outfit under the INEOS banner, a bit of motorsport action would fit in quite nicely.

[Penfold]

Toto hoping that higher sponsorship revenues and next year's budget cap will eliminate cost as a factor in Merc's decision on remaining an F1 constructor: https://www.racefans.net/2020/02/10/wolff-wants-to-make-a-no-brainer-for-mercedes-to-stay-in-f1/

[Chrill]

https://www.racefans.net/2020/10/27/draft-2021-f1-calendar-presented-to-teams-with-23-races/
An incredibly messy 23-race calendar is on the cards for next season. Is that too many? Yeah, I think so. 20ish feels well balanced, I think we all suffer F1 fatigue near the latter stages of the seasons anyway.

This would include two triple-headers, one of which goes Singapore-Russia-Japan which isn't logistically awesome.

Also, Brazil to remain (but move to Rio), and Saudi Arabia to join. Other than that, it's basically the original 2020 calendar with some reshuffling of the order. In other words, all the new circuits found this season are out again. Portimao especially, I would like to see return. Mugello was cool, as was Nurburgring, and Imola and Turkey will probably be too.

[Penfold]

Portimao was ruined by the DRS zone.  Sure there were some bits of wheel-to-wheel action at other parts of the track, but most of the overtakes had zero excitement.  Could've had a good fight for the lead but no... Hamilton did the better job on tyre management, closed up on Bottas and then power DRS'd his way past.

Any DRS pass is bad enough, but these ones were a joke and killed it for me: I was watching C4's highlights (about one hour of the 'action') and I was so fed up with it that I started jumping through bits at the end.  It's supposed to be racing, but how is it racing when drivers have no hope of defending their position?  Might as well give each car a small jet engine and let them fire it up instead of DRS.  Same result but at least it would sound cool.

[Chrill]

It wasn't that bad. We had at least two battles that begun with DRS, and didn't end until a lap later. Kimi and Sergio Perez, I think it was, battled side by side for 6-7 corners after DRS.

This would definitely have benefitted from a shorter DRS zone, but I really found Portimao to be a good race.

[Penfold]

I just said on the 'rate the drivers' thread that I'm done with any races which have these massively over-powered DRS zones, simply no interest in watching them any more. 

[Penfold]

What it needed was no DRS zone.  Long straight, quite high downforce levels, let's see if the old-fashioned slipstreaming approach could work.

[Penfold]

McLaren's transition back to Merc engines going well so far: https://www.racefans.net/2020/11/03/no-nasty-surprises-designing-mercedes-installation-for-mclaren-mcl35m-key/

As Key mentions, for this first year they'll miss out on some of the advantages of having Mercedes power - principally that they won't be able to shrink bodywork tightly around the engine - but doesn't sound like they need to make any unwelcome alterations to their car.  Plus, they get Mercedes power and reliability... so that should help.