The 2022 F1 Season

Assuming the Red Bull and the Mercedes are as equally matched next year as they were this, Lewis Hamilton will have to find a way of dealing with Max Verstappen's driving. While I'm not a competitive racing driver, as a long-time follower of Formula 1 motor racing (and an unabashed Hamilton fan) I am worried that Verstappen has found an overtaking maneuver that is both risky and currently highly effective. While drivers generally move towards the apex from the outside of the track as they approach a corner, Verstappen, when executing an overtake, comes into the corner on the inside of the car ahead and breaks very late into the corner. While technically he may be abreast of the car he is trying to overtake on entry to the corner his excess speed and the fact that his car is now pointing less towards the apex than the car he is trying to pass means that the only way for the other driver to avoid a crash is to leave the track limits. That will either cost time or mean that if he is deemed to have gained an advantage, he will have to yield the place to Verstappen. In other words, Verstappen will make the overtake by forcing his opponent of the track in a risky, some (including me) would say reckless, move. Yet that kind of driving is often just called "highly competitive racing".  But in my view, as we saw at Monza this year then the two drivers did collide  (Verstappen was slightly behind Hamilton when the shunt happened), diving down the inside put both drivers at unnecessary risk. It forces the innocent party to accommodate the aggressor. 

Although this may be a slightly stylized representation, it makes the point that while technically in a fraction of a second, Verstappen will be ahead of Hamilton and the corner is "his", there is no way for Hamilton, who is turning into the apex, to avoid a collision unless he steers left meaning he will exceed track limits (assuming there is a runoff area). Unless the stewards begin to impose time penalties for diving down the inside and forcing the other driver out of track limits (as was the case in the first lap in Yas Marina) he will continue to use the maneuver to his advantage.

So were I in a position (which clearly I'm not) to give Hamilton some advice, it would be this; go into the simulator over the winter and try different approaches to the corner to  neutralize Verstappen's "inside lunge" overtake.

Otherwise he'll have to rely on being quicker and more reliable, which simply may not be enough for his eighth world championship.