![]() Red Bull made progress on both fronts, narrowing the gap in relative Elo 3 from 59 points in 2020 to just 9 points this year and reducing the chance of a mechanical failure during an average race from 9 percent to just 3 percent. ![]() Going into 2021, though, Verstappen was likely to have a small edge in qualifying, and if Red Bull could deliver improvements in either performance or reliability then Mercedes was in serious trouble. The main takeaway from our earlier analysis was that Verstappen had outdone Hamilton on raw speed last year, but a combination of Hamilton’s consistency and the speed and reliability of the Mercedes had given Hamilton enough of an edge to retain the 2020 title comfortably. Setting aside the emotions of the moment, the events at Abu Dhabi and questions about the larger direction of the sport, what can we learn about how the season unfolded? How did Verstappen claim the Drivers’ Championship while Red Bull lost out on the Constructors’ Championship to Mercedes? How well did the various driver moves pay off, including two-time World Champion Alonso’s return after two seasons away? And how well did the season stack up to our predictions back in April? Emotionally, though, the season felt more similar to the contentious battles of 2008 2 or the Prost-Senna era 30 years ago. On paper, the 2021 season echoed 2005 in many ways, as a 24-year-old wunderkind (Verstappen now, Fernando Alonso then) broke the dominant run of a 36-year-old seven-time champion (Hamilton now, Michael Schumacher then). 1 Over the course of 22 races, the seven-time World Drivers’ Champion and the 24-year-old prodigy traded pole positions, victories, fastest laps and even accusations of blame as the two came together on multiple occasions. The final lap of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix was the 2021 season in a nutshell: all-time great Lewis Hamilton trying - and failing - to stay ahead of Max Verstappen, the ascendant poster child of the next generation of Formula One, yet neither able to escape the background noise of questionable rules enforcement that left fans and drivers alike uncertain about what comes next.
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