This is the second go around of the Red Bull Ring and the third stop of the triple header. In last week’s race, Red Bull pulled away from Mercedes in both of the Drivers and Constructors Championships. Since we will be going back to the same track this weekend, will it produce the same result?
In this week’s edition of Cabby’s Questions, we will look at whether Hamilton will be able to bounce back this weekend, will Gasly get the 2022 seat at Red Bull and are we finally going to have our first wet weather race of the season.
Should we be writing off Hamilton?
Max Verstappen is coming into this weekend having won three of the last four races. If not for a rear tire failure at Baku, he would have gone four for four. He is also carrying an 18 point lead in the drivers championship. Since we are returning to the Red Bull friendly track for the second year in a row can Lewis Hamilton bounce back this weekend?
This is not the first time that Hamilton had a slow start and ultimately won the driver’s championship. In 2018, Hamilton did not win his first race of the season until the fourth race at Azerbaijan, he followed that up with 10 more wins and won the Drivers Championship by 88 points. On the other hand, Hamilton had a slow start in 2016 losing the first four races to Nico Rosberg and then bounced back again with 10 wins but ultimately lost the Championship by 5 points to Rosberg. Will this season be like 2018 or 2016?
Will Gasly get a Red Bull seat in 2022?
Pierre Gasly revealed during an interview with F1 that “there is interest” by other teams for him to join their team in 2022 but it will depend on “whether [Red Bull] are willing to release me to another team.” Gasly has had an adverse past with Red Bull. He was promoted to second seat at Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen in 2019. After 12 races in the seat, he was demoted to Toro Rosso [AlphaTauri’s former name] during the summer break.
Since his demotion to the “sister team”, he has shown his true skills as an F1 driver. He won his first race in Formula One at Monza in 2020 and has finished on the podium twice (Brazil 2019 & Baku 2021). So far this season, besides his two DNFs, Gasly has finished in the Top 10 in each of the races. Will Red Bull promote him again or will be forced to join another team in 2022?
Will we get our first wet weather race of 2021… AGAIN?
Our hopes were up last week for a wet weather race but like every other race this season, we had a dry race. There was some hope with 9 laps to go in the race that we could have a wet finish. Multiple drivers on their team radios asking their engineers if there was rain in the forecast since there were ominous clouds in the sky. But of course, we would get rain during the podium celebration. This week’s weather forecast shows a 90% chance of rain on Sunday. Are we in for another disappointment or are our dreams finally coming true?
All of these questions will be answered in this weekend’s Austrian Grand Prix
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