Last weekend, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes were concerned about Jeddah. The car’s bouncing issues through Sector 1’s high-speed sweeps ensured that, going into the third year of these regulations, it was uncompetitive with Ferrari and McLaren, let alone Red Bull. It appears that the team is still struggling to find competitive, useable downforce within these restrictions. The fact that Hamilton was not even keeping up with teammate George Russell’s pace was even more concerning. Hamilton at Jeddah is no stranger to this. Even in comparison to his teammates, he has suffered there over the past three years. Something about the high-speed oversteer of a Mercedes with a venturi floor and the quick, wall-lined sweeps just makes him lose the confidence he needs to push the boundaries.
However, he really won his most recent grand prix at the inaugural Jeddah event, which was the penultimate race of the ’21 season, during his thrilling battle with Max Verstappen for the season’s title. The Mercedes outperformed the Red Bull during that latter stretch of the season. It was in Brazil that Verstappen had realized this two races prior. Mercedes was able to fully realize the promise of its Silverstone update, which improved the diffuser stall at high speeds and allowed for the use of larger wing levels, thanks to a thorough rethinking of the setup between Mexico and Brazil. It was unstoppable thanks to that and a new power unit that was launched in Brazil. Because it would only be used for three races instead of the usual seven, it could be run much more aggressively. With that combination, Verstappen did his best to encourage contact between them when he ran the Mercedes off the road at Turn 4 at Interlagos, but it was still not enough to stop Hamilton from winning, even though he started the sprint race at last and the main event in 10th place.
Verstappen acted in a tactical manner there. With four races remaining, he held a 19-point lead, but Red Bull had been caught off guard by Mercedes’s late-season performance increase. Verstappen realized that his lead of points was probably not going to hold up in the end. In the four races from Brazil, Hamilton might have taken 28 points from him with 25 points for winning and only 18 for finishing second. He was therefore ready to take the “yield or we crash” stance whenever he was near Hamilton, knowing full well that if they did eliminate one another, Verstappen would benefit as the leader in points.
