The drivers who need to do better in the second half of F1 2021

Daniel Riccardo 

Daniel Ricciardo’s struggles to adapt to McLaren’s 2021 F1 car has been one of the most surprising and perplexing storylines of the season. 

While it was only natural for the drivers switching teams over the winter to make a slow start given the shortened pre-season testing, Ricciardo’s issues have shown little sign of coming to an end even after 11 races. 

The seven-time grand prix winner is still trying to solve the puzzle of McLaren’s MCL35M challenger in order to extract the sort of performances we’ve come to expect from the Australian in recent years. 

So far, his McLaren stint has been underwhelming to say the least. Ricciardo has been comprehensively outclassed by rising star Lando Norris and is in need of a breakthrough if he is to help the Woking squad beat Ferrari to third place in the constructors’ world championship. 

Ricciardo has been here before, having made a slow start to life at Renault before things clicked and he came on strong during the second half of 2019. There is no doubt Ricciardo has the ability to deliver, but if he doesn’t turn things around soon the pressure will only ramp up. 

Valtteri Bottas 

2021 has been a year of frustration and disappointment for Valtteri Bottas, who has failed to win a race yet despite his teammate Lewis Hamilton claiming four victories. 

Bottas’ campaign has been tinged by moments of huge misfortune - none more so than in Monaco where a pit stop issue cruelly ended his chances of fighting Max Verstappen for the win. 

But the Finn has done little to boost his reputation, or enhance his chances of retaining his seat amid intensifying speculation that Mercedes is set to promote Williams driver George Russell to partner Hamilton. 

Too often has Bottas been off the pace of Hamilton and Verstappen this year, though he did play a vital role in helping Hamilton secure a fightback victory at the British GP. Consistency has once again let Bottas down. 

Recent performers have been better, however, and Mercedes now holds a lead in both world championships. But Bottas will need to step it up in the second half of 2021 if he is to help Mercedes continue its undefeated run and stake a claim to keep his place at the team. 

An embarrassing mistake that caused chaos on the opening lap in Hungary - and earned Bottas a five-place grid drop for the Belgian GP - pretty much summed up what has been a miserable year so far. 

Sergio Perez 

Being Verstappen’s teammate is never an easy task, but Sergio Perez has had a largely positive start to life alongside Red Bull’s star talent. 

One victory and a podium from 11 races is not a bad return on paper, but the biggest problem facing Perez is the large gulf between himself and Verstappen, who has won five times and claimed five poles. 

Aside from his qualifying anomaly at Imola, Perez has, as expected, been comfortably shaded by Verstappen on Saturdays. After all, it is Sundays when the Mexican usually shines brightest. 

A mistake-ridden Imola race aside, Perez has been solid and was there to pick up the pieces for Red Bull when Verstappen suffered a tyre failure while leading in Baku to claim his maiden win for the team in just his sixth outing. He has yet to repeat that kind of performance. 

Another podium followed with third place in France but since Paul Ricard, Perez has only finished inside the top five on one occasion. Any hopes of regaining some momentum heading into the summer break were crushed by a nightmarish weekend at Silverstone, before he was taken out in the Turn 1 carnage in Hungary. 

Although Perez’s displays have been decent and Red Bull is expected to hand him a contract extension for 2022, he should be higher than fifth in the championship given the competitive machinery at his disposal.

If Red Bull is to successfully overhaul Mercedes during the second half of 2021, Perez will need to get a bit closer to his teammate’s level of performance and start over-delivering as he vowed to do when he joined the team.

Yuki Tsunoda 

Yuki Tsunoda’s rookie F1 campaign has been a tale of a few impressive highs interspersed with several costly crashes.

A brilliant drive to P9 and points on his debut prompted an early hype train that quickly halted when Tsunoda was brought back down to earth with a bang at Imola where he suffered a big crash in qualifying, before ruining his recovery drive from the back of the grid by spinning out of the points. 

Further qualifying crashes followed in Azerbaijan and France and he also hampered his weekend in Monaco following a shunt in practice. Tsunoda is the youngest driver on the grid, and his inexperience has been telling at times, with the Japanese racer often losing his cool over team radio and making questionable comments to the media. 

Tsunoda is a rough diamond. There is no doubting that he has electrifying raw speed to compliment his entertaining, combative style when racing - the AlphaTauri youngster just has a tendency to get too excited and overstep the mark every so often. 

Mistakes were to be expected given his rapid rise through the junior ranks but to gather some much-needed consistency and harness his potential, Tsunoda needs to take a step back and cut out the amount of needless errors he makes. 

Tsunoda showed what he can do when he produces clean weekends with back-to-back points finishes at Silverstone and Budapest. If he can keep that up when the season resumes, expect some real progress to be made. 

Nicholas Latifi 

It may seem harsh to include Nicholas Latifi on this list after the Canadian registered his first F1 points and best result to date with a brilliant drive to seventh at the Hungarian GP. 

But while Latifi has taken a solid step forward in his second full season as an F1 driver, he is still lagging behind his Williams teammate Russell, who has been utterly dominant in qualifying. 

Despite getting closer to the Mercedes protege on Saturdays, Latifi is still yet to outqualify Russell, who has progressed to Q2 10 times in 11 races and made it into Q3 twice. 

Latifi’s best performances tend to come on Sundays but more often than not he has been following Russell home in the lower reaches of the classification. Budapest was an anomaly among otherwise mixed results but it acted as a well-timed boost for Latifi as Williams mulls over its driver line-up for 2022. 

With an abundance of options at its disposal and the team no longer relying on drivers who bring financial backing, the onus is on Latifi to prove beyond doubt that he deserves to hold onto his Williams seat.