Brundles opinion on Max vs Lewis and Red bull's revenge

Martin Brundle: Max Verstappen vs Lewis Hamilton worth the wait as Red Bull wrongfoot rivals in France

In his French GP column, Martin Brundle reflects on another gripping battle between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton as the Formula 1 2021 title race hots up, and delivers his verdict on the big strategy calls that helped Red Bull beat Mercedes again

 The best of the action from a thrilling race in France as Max Verstappen claims Red Bull's third straight win ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez.

This is going to be a season of F1 racing that just keeps on giving. As we march through the practice sessions, qualifying phases, and races it seems to constantly boil down to Max Verstappen versus Lewis Hamilton, and therefore Red Bull versus Mercedes-Benz.

We've been waiting for this through seven hybrid F1 seasons and it appears to be well worth the wait. This is about speed, consistency, guile, racecraft, calculated risks, and delivering all day every day. I'm really happy to be witnessing it.

• Driver Ratings: Assessing the performances from French GP
• Mercedes left with 'lots to learn' after Red Bull's 'payback'
• Nico Rosberg and Sky F1 pundits on Verstappen vs Hamilton

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It always feels special to revisit Paul Ricard, bringing back memories for me of the 1980s when this event had a sports festival and summer holiday feel to it, in the sunshine high up in the hills of the Cote D'Azur.

The track was always fast and old school with scarily short run offs filled with sun-baked gravel and the dreaded wire mesh and wooden poles called 'catch fencing' which could often domore harm than good.

It's a very similar layout today, a third of a century later, but the now very large run off zones are filled with a kaleidoscope of red and blue stripes which can trick your eyes. This coloured paint is supposedly very grippy to slow the cars down when spinning, although when it's inevitably dusty they just seem to rip holes in the tyres before depositing the car in the barriers anyway.

The place was always a tyre killer whichever category of racing and tyre manufacturer and, after the blowouts in Baku for Verstappen and Lance Stroll, the FIA delivered a comprehensive 'Technical Directive' which set out a significant set of new checks for tyre pressure management and blanket heating.

Without ever quite saying so, the inference was that Red Bull and Aston Martin had been running their tyre pressures below the recommended minima while out on track and so contributed to the tyre failures, which those teams strongly denied. It's a very serious topic if driver and track worker safety is being put at risk for performance.Pirelli want the security of higher inflation pressures which add strength and support to their tyres - after all any tyre manufacturer who is the sole supplier to a championship simply doesn't need the extremely bad publicity of tyre failures. They are guaranteed to win anyway.

The weight, aero downforce, and 1000 horsepower motors put a tremendous strain on F1 tyres and their four contact patches which transmit everything into the track. It's a cat and mouse game between the performance engineers and the tyre suppliers for grip versus structural integrity, as it has been for decades.

Ironically both Red Bull and Aston Martin had comparatively strong races, unlike Ferrari, which suggests that the story was over played, rather like the flexy rear wing controversy. It's not a great surprise because the teams are always looking for a myriad of small improvements, and so the knockbacks are also going to be similarly small.

There was another stormy teacup story in the curious case of Mercedes 'rotating' their chassis between drivers, which sounds more like a flip flop than a rotation. When it all shook out, the focus remained on a fight for pole position between Hamilton and Verstappen, which Max won with a tremendous lap, and not his first of the weekend.

The rear gunners of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez were exactly that in the qualifying reckoning.

We're into a triple header with two more races in Austria coming right up, and a track where Red Bull and Verstappen have taken the fight to Merc even before this current burst of newly-found speed and reliability.

Can Mercedes regain the high ground, or will Verstappen and Red Bull extend their leadership in both championships?