Sebastian Vettel: Revenge (PART 1)

Chapter 3: Turn 5

14 December 2021

"Turn 5 is the place to attack, look out for Vertappen, he's attacking Lewis from the inside and it's happening! Max comes out of the corner ahead of Lewis, it looks like Lewis can't catch up to him! It's only halfway through the race, but trouble is already starting here for the seven-time F1 world champion!"
After the day's testing was over, Lewis decided to watch a replay of the race in which he lost his world title to the young Dutchman. Despite everyone telling him and explaining to him to put those thoughts to rest and that he should forget about that weekend he was still looking, analysing the whole race, his driving line and Verstappen's, looking for the direct reason why the race ended in defeat for him.
"Are you watching it again Lewis? Come on, you know that out of everyone you have the best chance of another title," Angela said, her voice coming from behind the glass door of Lewis' room in the Mercedes trailer. His tests were due to take place in the afternoon. Lewis stopped the replay of the race, he looked straight into his agent's eyes, she could see he was still reliving what had happened a few days before. With his hand he motioned for her to sit next to him, he wanted to talk to her.
"They have new cars coming in, I still don't know what might await us in them. I feel that in time our engine will not be enough over the aerodynamics of the Redbull," Hamilton said.
"You are worrying unnecessarily. You know very well that we have a big budget, surely we can make a better car for next season" countered Angel. She tried to sound as convincing as possible, but apart from a brief artificial smile, Lewis did not respond to her attempts to comfort him.
"One other thing puzzles me," Hamilton added, which caught the woman's attention, giving a quiet sound signifying for the man to continue his narrative.
"I still don't know who could be my team-mate for next season. After Bottas left, nothing is certain. I called Toto last night, but he wouldn't tell me anything about it," Lewis replied. Lewis' message puzzled the woman, who almost came up with the idea of this play by Wolf, which would not necessarily please Lewis.
"Well, maybe they're waiting for a moment to make an announcement that will result in you not being able to change the team's decision" replied Angel thoughtfully.
"Hm...but why would they do that? At least until 2025 they can't change the number 1 driver in the team, it would involve penalties for them..." Replied Lewis thoughtfully.
"It is possible that they want to hire someone... stronger than Bottas" added Angel. These words Lewis took very seriously. He straightened up on the couch and sighed heavily, wondering in his mind who was a strong candidate for the Mercedes seat. The day before he had heard from Norris that a German was walking around the paddock, but he didn't take the thought seriously. He was looking for viable options.
"Who is strong enough to be faster than Bottas and have a chance of getting a Mercedes contract..."
"In theory Russell, but he has already signed a contract with Williams until 2023" countered Angel.
"Esteban Gutierrez?"
"He currently drives for Mercedes in Formula e, it's doubtful they will move him to F1" denied Angel immediately. This surprised Lewis quite a bit, if not them, then who could come into his team and be that 'stronger' rider?  There wasn't much time left for that as any minute later a slim man knocked on the office door, it was Bono, who was inviting Lewis to the final post-season session.

Lewis walking into his garage could see that some teams were already packing up so they could leave the venue for the last event of the season, which exceptionally provided a lot of excitement, but there were also teams that were ready to leave and were actually doing so. The first team to leave Abu Dhabi was Ferrari, they started their testing at 8.00 a.m. , so you could say that they really got their testing organised early. Although this may be mainly because they wanted to test the car in cooler temperatures and conditions, many teams lacked such data. From what Hamilton could deduce, only his team looked unready to leave the track, everything looked ready to go and so it was. Upon entering his garage, the car was waiting for him ready to go, a couple of mechanics walking around him changing the angle of the front wing, presumably to get more downforce in the corners. Although, at first glance, it looked like the team wasn't thinking about packing, you could see that most of the big equipment had already been packed away and all that was left was the equipment needed to run the car. Hamilton made his way to his changing room so that he could put on his overalls and make his last track start of the season.

Hamilton, on track, didn't want to risk tiring himself too much and didn't want to tire his machine too much, which was giving its all, and wanted the day to be a pleasant Sunday drive for him and his car. In addition to Mercedes, the Alpine team was also on track with Alonso, who like Lewis didn't put too much pressure on the car but just tried to make the most of his time on track, for the last time this year. The delta in Hamilton's time compared to race pace times was about +1.5s, so it wasn't a bad result, but Lewis' engineer could see in him that he no longer wanted to tire the car more at the very end. He deserved a well-deserved retirement.

The weather on track was good, it was hot, there was a light breeze blowing which gave a refreshing feeling, there were just a few white clouds in the sky which muddied the blue sky a little, but you couldn't complain about anything. The measurement was right and that's what mattered. In fact, the post-season testing this year wasn't much help, it was just a sort of free ride chance on the track. With the cars about to undergo a technical revolution and the aerodynamic principles to be completely different to those of the last few seasons, the post-season measurements gave absolutely no clue as to how to build the car for next season. Everyone was already thinking about the 2022 season, where every detail will count.

After an hour's drive, Hamilton, was asked to go down to the pit lane to complete his final participation in post-season testing, he was now free for at least a dozen days which may give him some peace of mind. After the descent, he had final conversations with his teammates. He thanked all the engineers, aerodynamicists and mechanics for their cooperation and wished them a good, albeit short, rest. During the conversations he looked for Toto Wolf, but could not find him with his eyes. It was quite a strange feeling, it looked like the team boss was the first to leave the test site, which got Lewis thinking, where could the team boss have gone?
After his final talks with the engineers, Angel was waiting by his changing room with the news that his private plane was already waiting.