Max Verstappen led every lap of last year's Abu Dhabi season-ender, but Mercedes have warned against reading too much into that dominant display before next weekend's winner-takes-all title decider.
The 24-year-old Red Bull driver and Mercedes' seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton return to the Yas Marina circuit level on points, but with Verstappen ahead 9-8 on race wins.
Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said the circumstances last year, when Verstappen won by a 15.9 second margin with Hamilton third, were different.
In 2020 Hamilton had already clinched his seventh title and was suffering the after effects of Covid-19, which had ruled him out of the Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain.
Before last season's defeat, Mercedes triumphed six years in a row in the emirate with Hamilton winning four times.
"Last year, Lewis was [racing] a few days after a bout of Covid. There's no way he was performing at his best. It's not an easy thing to get over," said Shovlin.
"Our analysis after that event ... indicated that we put the set-up in the wrong place."
"We had development tyres there, we did work focusing on those. We'd won the championship and we decided to try to understand the tyres rather than focus on the race weekend.
"We ended up going into the race underprepared with a car that wasn't well-balanced and I think ultimately that's where it cost us."
Shovlin said the concern this time was the unknowns of a circuit that has been modified significantly to provide more overtaking opportunities and shortened by 270 metres.
The lap will now be considerably quicker than before, with a "patchwork quilt" of asphalt as new areas of the circuit blend in with the old, but the same tyre compounds will be available as last year.
"We're treating it like a new circuit and we know what we need to do. We need to go there and win."
Reuters
Mercedes say 2020 result is no guide to Abu Dhabi F1 decider
Image: Hamad I Mohammed - Pool/Getty Images
Max Verstappen led every lap of last year's Abu Dhabi season-ender, but Mercedes have warned against reading too much into that dominant display before next weekend's winner-takes-all title decider.
The 24-year-old Red Bull driver and Mercedes' seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton return to the Yas Marina circuit level on points, but with Verstappen ahead 9-8 on race wins.
Mercedes' trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin said the circumstances last year, when Verstappen won by a 15.9 second margin with Hamilton third, were different.
In 2020 Hamilton had already clinched his seventh title and was suffering the after effects of Covid-19, which had ruled him out of the Sakhir Grand Prix in Bahrain.
Before last season's defeat, Mercedes triumphed six years in a row in the emirate with Hamilton winning four times.
"Last year, Lewis was [racing] a few days after a bout of Covid. There's no way he was performing at his best. It's not an easy thing to get over," said Shovlin.
"Our analysis after that event ... indicated that we put the set-up in the wrong place."
"We had development tyres there, we did work focusing on those. We'd won the championship and we decided to try to understand the tyres rather than focus on the race weekend.
"We ended up going into the race underprepared with a car that wasn't well-balanced and I think ultimately that's where it cost us."
Shovlin said the concern this time was the unknowns of a circuit that has been modified significantly to provide more overtaking opportunities and shortened by 270 metres.
The lap will now be considerably quicker than before, with a "patchwork quilt" of asphalt as new areas of the circuit blend in with the old, but the same tyre compounds will be available as last year.
"We're treating it like a new circuit and we know what we need to do. We need to go there and win."
Reuters
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