2021 Season

The 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship is the 72nd running of the Formula One World Championship, contested over twenty-two Grands Prix around the world.

Driver changes

The headline moves see four drivers rotate in a chain. Sebastian Vettel departs Ferrari after six seasons and joins the rebranded Aston Martin team. His Ferrari seat goes to Carlos Sainz Jr., who leaves McLaren after two seasons. Daniel Ricciardo fills Sainz’s McLaren seat, moving from Renault. Two-time champion Fernando Alonso returns to F1 after a three-year absence, taking Ricciardo’s place at Renault’s rebranded Alpine operation — his first season since 2018.

At Red Bull, Sergio Pérez joins from Aston Martin’s predecessor Racing Point, replacing Alexander Albon, who becomes Red Bull’s reserve and test driver. Pérez is the first driver to join Red Bull without coming through the Red Bull Junior programme since Mark Webber in 2007.

Haas undergoes a complete driver change. Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen, who had raced for the team since 2016 and 2017 respectively, do not continue. 2020 Formula 2 Champion Mick Schumacher — son of seven-time champion Michael Schumacher — takes one seat, while Nikita Mazepin, fifth in the 2020 Formula 2 Championship, takes the other.

Yuki Tsunoda graduates from Formula 2, where he finished third in 2020, to join Scuderia AlphaTauri, replacing Daniil Kvyat. Tsunoda is the first Japanese driver in Formula One since Kamui Kobayashi in 2014. Kvyat moves to Alpine as reserve driver.

Team changes

Racing Point is rebranded as Aston Martin, following team part-owner Lawrence Stroll’s investment in the British marque — the first Aston Martin works entry since 1960. Renault rebrands as Alpine, taking the name of Renault’s sportscar division. McLaren switches from Renault power units to Mercedes, resuming a partnership that ran from 1995 to 2014; they receive special dispensation from the FIA to modify their chassis for the engine change.

Calendar

Twenty-two races are scheduled. The Australian Grand Prix, originally the season opener, is postponed and later cancelled for a second consecutive year due to COVID-19 travel restrictions in Victoria. The Vietnamese Grand Prix, which had been planned for Hanoi, is dropped from the calendar after the arrest of former Hanoi chairman Nguyễn Đức Chung on corruption charges.

Three circuits make their Formula One debut: the Dutch Grand Prix returns to the calendar at Circuit Zandvoort — the first Dutch Grand Prix since 1985 — after its planned 2020 comeback was cancelled by the pandemic. The Qatar Grand Prix makes its debut at the Lusail International Circuit, a night race at a venue that has hosted MotoGP since 2004. The Saudi Arabian Grand Prix runs for the first time on a temporary street circuit in Jeddah, also at night.

Returning races include Monaco and Azerbaijan, both absent in 2020 due to street-circuit logistics. The Brazilian Grand Prix returns as the São Paulo Grand Prix, reflecting increased local government involvement. The French and United States Grands Prix are also back. The circuit-specific Grands Prix introduced in 2020 to fill the pandemic-reduced calendar — the 70th Anniversary, Eifel, Sakhir, and Tuscan Grands Prix — do not feature.

A trial sprint qualifying format runs at three rounds: the British, Italian, and São Paulo Grands Prix. At these events, standard qualifying takes place on Friday afternoon, with a sprint race on Saturday determining the main race grid. Three points are awarded to the sprint winner, two to second, one to third.

Regulation changes

The sport introduces its first budget cap, limiting teams to $145 million of car-performance expenditure per year. Teams must use more commercially available materials and submit annual accounts for scrutiny. Each race beyond 21 adds $1 million to the cap; each race below 21 reduces it.

Development is restricted by a token system: each team receives a set number of tokens that can be exchanged for specific component upgrades, easing financial pressure while preventing a full development arms race. McLaren received special dispensation to use tokens for their engine switch.

The floor regulations are tightened to reduce downforce. The floor edge is moved 100 mm inboard ahead of the rear tyre, and slots on the floor edge are removed; brake duct winglets are narrowed by 40 mm, and diffuser fences by 50 mm. The combined changes reduce downforce by approximately 10%, though teams are expected to recover some of that over the winter. The dual-axis steering (DAS) system developed by Mercedes in 2020 is banned.

Race weekend structure changes: all Thursday media and scrutineering activities move to Friday morning. The two Friday practice sessions are shortened from 90 minutes to 60 minutes each. Cars enter parc fermé after FP3 rather than after qualifying, further limiting setup changes ahead of the race. The race time limit for red-flagged races is reduced from four hours to three hours.

Pre-season testing

Pre-season testing moves from the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya to the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir, with three days of running beginning on 12 March. Formula One declined an offer from the Bahrain government to provide COVID-19 vaccines for all testing and race weekend personnel, though several teams and drivers chose to accept the offer individually.