2021 Formula One World Championship

The 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship is a planned motor racing championship for Formula One cars which will be the 72nd running of the Formula One World Championship.[lower-alpha 1] It is recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the governing body of international motorsport, as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. The championship is due to be contested over a series of races, or Grands Prix, held around the world. Drivers and teams are scheduled to compete for the titles of World Drivers' Champion and World Constructors' Champion respectively.

2021 FIA Formula One
World Championship
Previous: 2020 Next: 2022
Support series:
FIA Formula 2 Championship
FIA Formula 3 Championship

Entries

The following teams and drivers are currently under contract to compete in the 2021 World Championship. All teams will compete with tyres supplied by Pirelli.[1] Each team is required to enter at least two drivers, one for each of the two mandatory cars.[2][3]

Constructor Chassis[4] Power unit No. Driver name Ref.
AlphaTauri-Honda AT01 Honda TBA TBA [5]
TBA TBA
Aston Martin-TBA RP20[lower-alpha 2] TBA 11 Sergio Pérez [7]
TBA TBA
Ferrari SF1000 Ferrari 16 Charles Leclerc [8]
55 Carlos Sainz Jr. [9]
McLaren-Mercedes MCL35 Mercedes 3 Daniel Ricciardo [10]
4 Lando Norris [11][12]
Mercedes F1 W11 Mercedes 77 Valtteri Bottas [13]
TBA TBA [14]
Red Bull Racing-Honda RB16 Honda 33 Max Verstappen [15]
TBA TBA [5]
Renault R.S.20 Renault TBA[lower-alpha 3] Fernando Alonso [16]
31 Esteban Ocon [17]
Williams-Mercedes FW43 Mercedes 6 Nicholas Latifi [18][19]
63 George Russell [20]

Team changes

McLaren announced that they would change from using Renault power units to ones built by Mercedes, resuming the McLaren-Mercedes partnership that ran between 1995 and 2014.[11] Racing Point will become known as Aston Martin. The name change was brought about by the team's part owner Lawrence Stroll investing in the Aston Martin marque.[6]

Driver changes

Sebastian Vettel is set to leave Ferrari at the end of the 2020 championship.[21] The four-time World Drivers' Champion will have raced for the team for six seasons. Vettel's seat will be taken by Carlos Sainz Jr., who will leave McLaren.[9] Daniel Ricciardo is due to move from Renault to McLaren where he will replace Sainz.[10] Ricciardo is due to be replaced by two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, who returns for a third stint with Renault having last raced in 2018 for McLaren.[16]

List of planned races

The following eighteen Grands Prix are under contract to be held as part of the 2021 World Championship:

Grand Prix Circuit Ref.
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix Yas Marina Circuit, Abu Dhabi [22]
Australian Grand Prix Albert Park Circuit, Melbourne [23]
Azerbaijan Grand Prix Baku City Circuit, Baku [24]
Bahrain Grand Prix Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir [25]
Belgian Grand Prix Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Stavelot [26]
British Grand Prix Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone [27]
Canadian Grand Prix Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montréal [28]
Dutch Grand Prix Circuit Zandvoort, Zandvoort [29]
French Grand Prix Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet [30]
Hungarian Grand Prix Hungaroring, Mogyoród [31]
Italian Grand Prix Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, Monza [32]
Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka International Racing Course, Suzuka [25]
Mexico City Grand Prix Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, Mexico City [33]
Monaco Grand Prix Circuit de Monaco, Monte Carlo [34]
Russian Grand Prix Sochi Autodrom, Sochi [35]
Singapore Grand Prix Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore [36]
United States Grand Prix Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas [37]
Vietnamese Grand Prix Hanoi Street Circuit, Hanoi [38]

The following ten races are under contract to run in 2020, but not for 2021:

Grand Prix Circuit Ref.
70th Anniversary Grand Prix Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone [39]
Austrian Grand Prix Red Bull Ring, Spielberg [40]
Brazilian Grand Prix Autódromo José Carlos Pace, São Paulo [41]
Chinese Grand Prix Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai [42]
Eifel Grand Prix Nürburgring, Nürburg [43]
Emilia Romagna Grand Prix Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, Imola [44]
Portuguese Grand Prix Autódromo Internacional do Algarve, Portimão [45]
Spanish Grand Prix Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Barcelona [46]
Styrian Grand Prix Red Bull Ring, Spielberg [47]
Tuscan Grand Prix Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, Scarperia e San Piero [48]

Calendar expansion and changes

Liberty Media, the sport's commercial rights holders, announced that there would be scope for the 2021 calendar to expand beyond the planned twenty-two races of the 2020 calendar.[49] The sporting regulations were amended to allow for a maximum of twenty-five Grands Prix per year.[50]

Further changes to the calendar are planned following the disruption to the 2020 championship brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic:

Regulation changes

The 2021 championship was due to introduce significant changes to the regulations, including the sport's governance and the sporting rules but these were delayed in March 2020 in response to the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[61] These rule changes will instead be introduced in 2022.[4]

Financial regulation

The championship is due to introduce a budget cap, with teams limited to spending a maximum of $145 million per year.[62][63][lower-alpha 5] Teams will be required to use more commercially available materials and to submit their annual expenditure.[64] Some teams argued to further reduce the budget cap to $100 million, citing concerns that the long-term financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the future of as many as four teams.[65][66] Formula One managing director Ross Brawn stated that the sport's intention is to reduce the budget cap further in the coming years.[63]

The value of the budget cap is set for twenty-one races; each additional race increases the budget cap by $1 million, and vice versa: each race removed from the scheduled twenty-one race calendar deducts the budget cap by $1 million.[67] However, the budget cap does not include marketing budget, driver's salary and the salaries of the team's top three executives. There will be additional restrictions put in place dictating how prize money can be spent.[68] The cap will only apply to expenditure related to car performance, which will remain in place until 2026.[67] In the event that a team breaks the financial regulations, the team can be penalised in a combination of three separate ways. For a procedural violation teams will be fined on a case-by-case basis. Teams can be given a range of punishments for exceeding their annual budget which include being deducted championship points, having reduced testing time, a race ban, or—for the most severe cases—disqualification from the championship.[67]

Technical regulations

Teams will enter the cars they used in the 2020 championship.[4] This requirement was introduced to ease financial pressures on teams brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. McLaren were given permission to modify their car to accommodate the switch from Renault to Mercedes engines,[69] which prompted the FIA to introduce a token system.[70] Under the system, teams will be given a series of tokens which can be exchanged for the introduction of chassis upgrades. This allows for some development of the car year by year, but prevents teams for introducing an entirely new car.

The "Dual-Axis Steering" system developed by Mercedes in 2020 will be banned in 2021.[71] The dual-axis steering system allows the driver to adjust the toe of the front wheels to optimise mechanical grip by pulling or pushing on the steering wheel.

Sporting regulations

Teams will be required to allow a driver who has competed in fewer than two Grands Prix to replace one of their race drivers in a Friday practice session over the course of the season. Whilst these rules are intended to give a chance to more non-Formula One drivers to test a Formula One car, the wording of this rule means that teams satisfy the requirement if one of their regular drivers is in their rookie season.[72][73]

Race weekend structure

For the 2021 season the schedule of a race weekend is due to be revised. Under the pre-existing regulations a race weekend spans four days with the Thursday before the race being reserved for media and promotional events and scrutineering; however, under the new regulations all of Thursday's events will be moved to the Friday morning with the times between Friday's activities being reduced.[74] Cars will be under parc fermé conditions following the end of free practice 3 instead of qualifying, further restricting teams and drivers making major changes to setups ahead of the race.

Notes
  1. In the history of Formula One, Formula One regulations were first introduced during the 1946 Grand Prix season. These were adopted for every race in 1948, and were formally organised into a championship in 1950.
  2. The RP20 was originally designed and entered by Racing Point, who will rebrand as Aston Martin in 2021.[6]
  3. Fernando Alonso took two years out of Formula One, and as part of the driver numbering system his old number is no longer reserved for him meaning he will have the option to select a new number or retain his number 14, unless it has been claimed by someone else.
  4. Under FIA regulations, a host nation may only hold one Grand Prix. However, a loophole exists that allows a nation to host a second race under another name, such Germany hosting two races — the German and Luxembourg Grands Prix — in 1997 and 1998.
  5. Teams had originally agreed to a budget cap of $175 million per year,[64] but this figure was revised to $145 million in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.[62][63]

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