The Big 2022 Formula 1 Season Preview
Why no one believes Mercedes’ woes, and why no one knows what to expect this weekend in Bahrain.
With just a few days until lights out, no one still quite has a handle on what to expect in this year’s edition of the Formula One season.
Max Verstappen broke the Mercedes run of seven straight Drivers Championship in 2021 in dramatic fashion, but the German manufacturer still took home the Constructors crown for an eighth consecutive time.
But 2022 has seen the slate wiped clean.
An entirely new set of regulations mean that there is no aerodynamic carryover from the previous few seasons, which has given every team a fresh start.
Despite the changes, the usual favourites are still expected to compete at the top, with Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari set to compete at the front.
Their sheer size and history suggests it will take a few years of the new budget cap to make a real impact on the true pecking order.
Yet, if Lewis Hamilton is to be believed, this will be the year Mercedes’ eight year dominance comes to an end.
The seven-time champion has claimed the team have struggled this pre-season and he is not expecting the car to be capable of racing for victories once the season starts this weekend.
“It is too early to have those kind of thoughts about the world championship, but at the moment I don’t think we will be competing for wins,” said the 37-year old, via Sky Sports News.
“There is potential within our car to get us there. We’ve just got to learn to be able to extract it and fix some of the problems, which is what we’re working on.
“We have some hurdles to overcome and obviously next week we’ll get a much better showing of our pace, but I think people will be surprised, because people keep talking about whether we’re talking ourselves down or not, but it’s a bit different this year.”
But the problem for Hamilton is that nobody does believe him.
His competitor for last year’s championship, as well as Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, have both suggested they do not trust Mercedes’ claims.
“If someone is doing well or a team that everyone expects to do well, then it’s: ‘Oh no, we’re definitely not the favourite,’” said Verstappen, via Autosport.
“And then a week later, when things do go well, all of a sudden it’s: ‘Oh no, but we turned it around completely within a week. Not normal, unbelievable work. Thanks to all people in the factory!’”
Verstappen also alluded to 2021’s pre-season when Mercedes made similar remarks about their car only to win the opening Grand Prix of the season — and three of the first four.
Sainz and Lando Norris have also used questions about the Mercedes car to make similar points.
There has been a lot of confidence around the Ferrari team going into the opening race this weekend, but the Spaniard was quick to shift the attention back onto the reigning champions.
“I think it is typical Mercedes and typical George [Russell]; hype up the others and come to the first race and blow the competition away,” said Sainz, via the official F1 website.
Meanwhile, McLaren really struggled in the Bahrain test, with the team missing Daniel Ricciardo through illness and only able to complete 200 laps from three days of running — George Russell completed 198 by himself.
Norris admitted that his McLaren team will have their work cut out for them to prepare for the Bahrain Grand Prix as they look to alleviate problems with overheating brakes.
“We’re in a decent place, we know we have a lot of work to do. A lot more work to do than Lewis says he has to do!” joked Norris to Autosport.
There is a reason that nobody is willing to listen to Mercedes.
This is not the first, nor even the second or third, time that they have rocked up to pre-season testing and made such claims.
Most famously, the team were seemingly miles behind Ferrari in 2019, particularly in the first Barcelona test.
When everyone arrived in Australia and really showed off the true potential of their creations for the first time, it quickly became apparent Mercedes were the real deal.
The team went on to win the first seven races with a one-two finish before dominating both championships.
Yet Mercedes did genuinely seem to struggle and Sky Sports’ slate of experts, including Martin Brundle, seemed to think their issues were genuine.
It would be a massive shift in the F1 landscape if Mercedes’ struggles are real.
The team have dominated the sport since the major engine regulation changes of 2014, with Verstappen’s 2021 championship win the only major honour they have not earned since then.
Red Bull opted for a different PR strategy in Bahrain.
The team simply could not hide their satisfaction when Verstappen crossed the line to complete what ended the test as the quickest lap over the three days.
The garage erupted in smiles and claps, a potentially ominous sign of things to come.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are teams like Alfa Romeo and Williams who barely look capable of completing a Grand Prix at the moment.
Both were plagued with reliability issues throughout testing.
“At the moment, now, the biggest concern is getting the race distance done,” said Bottas, via Motorsport Week.
“We’ve had multiple, different kind of issues, these tests, but we’ve been always able to fix them and we hope there are no issues coming up.”
Somewhere in the middle is the great unknown going into the new season.
The likes of Alpha Tauri, Alpine and Aston Martin are all unsure where they stand in the order, with all three teams faring a relatively quiet three days in the desert.
Norris even claimed that McLaren can’t discount Haas in the competition to be fourth, with nobody having a firm grasp on who will earn the crown as best of the rest in 2022.
“The three teams there are looking the fastest at the minute and I would say everyone else is looking pretty close, from us, down to Haas,” said Norris via Motorsport Week.
“Even Haas looked very quick, [which is] surprising considering how far off they were last year and impressed to see the progress they look like they’ve made so far.
“I think even we need to be prepared to be racing against them and qualifying against them so we’ll see next week.”
Over the course of the coming season, each team will have the capacity to rise and fall from week to week based on upgrades and track characteristics.
The Bahrain Grand Prix won’t tell us everything we need to know as in-season development re-enters the frame after a lame duck 2021 on that front, yet it can’t come soon enough.
