The 2022 season of the Formula 1 It started with a promise and is ending with a different reality very similar to that of other years: an absolutely dominant driver and a handful of (very powerful) teams capable of fighting for a (short) period of time. With one difference: this time, Mercedes was far from repeating the constructors’ championship it had won since the beginning of the hybrid era eight editions ago.
But the order of Names does not alter the product. Max Verstappen became the third driver to become champion four dates before the end of the World Cup, equaling a score of Germans Michael Schumacher (in 2001 and 2004) and Sebastian Vettel (2011), and Red Bull is the overwhelming one-year dominatrix in the that Ferrari soon gave up a fight that seemed to have him able to last until the last round.
At Suzuka, the Austrian team finished with 576 points e six wins in a row (five from Verstappen and the last from Checo Pérez in Singapore) but fails to win the title against Ferrari, who had 137 fewer (439), who will stretch a little to the successor of Mercedes, whose hegemony in the hybrid era will change handsmainly for his own responsibility: so far he has not won a single race in the championship.
And this the victories were split between the Red Bull and Ferrari men: the Dutch Verstappen (12), the Mexican Pérez (2), the Monegasque Leclerc (3) and the Spanish Sainz (1). Neither in Suzuka, where Mercedes had been undefeated since 2014, even though it wasn’t raced in 2020 or 2021, Lewis Hamilton or George Russell were able to beat them.
In fact, only one podium had a protagonist who is not part of Red Bull, Ferrari or Mercedes, the three teams that were cut from the rest: Lando Norris in his McLaren in Imola.
From the emotions of 2021 to another monotonous championship
For the first time since 2016, when Nico Rosberg was champion and retired, last year Hamilton found a strong opponent in Verstappen and the category once again experienced a World Cup that had the emotion that the previous ones did not have. , what was expected that was the usual from the regulatory changes that came into effect this yearamong these the return of the ground effect, the changes to the aerodynamics and the 18-inch tires.
“In 2022 we will start a new chapter with major changes in regulations,” predicted FIA president Jean Todt before leaving his post on Friday 17 December 2021. “The goal of the car is that both can be followed closely, we want the best riders to win, but for the competition to be tighter and for them to fight wheel to wheel“, had completed the engineer Ross Brawn, technical director of Liberty Media, the company that organizes F1.
But did something like this happen? Less and nothing. Ground effect was nothing like Colin Chapman’s innovation in the 1970s and teams suffered from the rebound effect in much heavier cars. While, as expected, the talent of the driver prevailed – in this case the Dutchman who has just turned 25 – but also the power of a team, this time, Red Bull.
That omen of a close separation of the cars on the track has only happened a couple of times. In Saudi Arabia and Canada there was less than a second between the first and the second: Leclerc finished 0.549 seconds behind Verstappen on March 27 in Jeddah and Sainz finished 0.993 seconds behind the Dutchman in Montreal on June 19. Instead the competition was not there, and it was highlighted, basically in Australia and Azerbaijan, where the distance between the two best it was more than 20 seconds.
There was – only at the beginning of the season – a team that improved its performance compared to previous years, even if far from being one of the few resources. Ferrari, the team with the most history and charm in F1, wowed the fans, who had not celebrated a championship since 2007, when Kimi Raikkonen beat the then drivers McLaren Hamilton and Alonso by one point. But things have changed since July 10, when he won the biggest GP trophy for the last time, despite that. Leclerc is the one who has accumulated the most poles this year (9).
In Singapore, the last round, Ferrari managed to stay ahead of Red Bull, despite the victory going to Pérez, because its drivers escorted him in a double podium not seen from Miami on May 8th, behind Verstappen, who was still Leclerc’s escort in the league. That difference of 33 points against 31 also allowed the Scuderia get away from mercedes and widen the gap to 66 in the fight for second place in the constructors’ championship.
Is that Mercedes suffered the start of the season. Basically seven-time champion Hamilton, on whom it even hinted that he would end up “Brain damage” due to the rebound in the car due to the ground effect of the new ground floor incorporated in the new regulation.
“I still believe the FIA and all of us have to do something about it. Frequencies from 1 to 1 hertz lasting a few minutes can cause brain damage. We have 6 to 7 hertz for several hours, “said Toto Wolff and the British tabloid press used it to claim that the damage it could be irreversible.
The British, for his part, told on his social networks when he had just concluded eight dates that he had suffered “Dizziness, back pain and headache”. Right after that, Mercedes managed to reduce that impact and its drivers improved their performance.
With the three most powerful teams in F1 cut in the lead (Red Bull with 619 points, Ferrari with 454 and Mercedes with 387) it can be said that the highest parity was among the others. Because by eliminating Williams, who suffered from Nicholas Latifi and fed on Alex Albon’s points (and Nyck de Vries’ 2 in Monza) to reach 8 in last place, Haas came from the bottom to add 34 and to have the same of Alpha Tauri, slightly surpassed by the 45 of Aston Martin and not very far from the 52 of Alfa Romeo. McLaren (130) and Alpine (143), meanwhile, they fight hand in hand to be “the best of others”that is, remaining in fourth place.
Ferrari gave up the battle between paddock mistakes and two sleepy drivers
“Our goal as a team is obviously to win races and prepare well for next season. because obviously this year being champions is too difficult for both the constructors and the riders, so we are focused on trying to win the races ”. With this statement, Carlos Sainz started his weekend in Suzuka. Not very tempting, is it?
And this Ferrari gave up the fight before running out of possibilities and despite a promising start: Leclerc and Sainz’s 1-2 in Bahrain, to cut a two-and-a-half-year losing streak without a win from the 2019 Singapore GP. And for five dates the Monegasque, who hadn’t won since his time of Monza 2019, he was the leader of the championship, despite having repeated the victory in Australia only on 10 April.
But in Spain the tip has changed hands. On May 22, Catalonia represented a catastrophe for Ferrari: Not only did Verstappen beat them again – on a podium completed by Pérez and George Russell – but Leclerc suffered what would have been the first of his three retirements of the season, when 27 of the 66 laps had elapsed.
The last of those abandonments of the Monegasque was in France, immediately after his victory in Austria -subsequent immediately after that of Sainz at Silverstone-, the latest in a season finale in which he lost head-to-head with Verstappen: two sixth places, a third and two seconds against four wins and a seventh place for the Dutchman.
Sainz did not do much to help Ferrari in the constructors’ championship either.. Although he added in all the races, in that final straight he gave him two podiums (third in Belgium and same position in Singapore), he was 4th in Hungary and Italy and was eighth in the Netherlands.
Although until July he had achieved four victories, Ferrari arrived in Japan accumulating six races without winningwhich left him with no options in both competitions despite such an interesting start for the Ferrari F1-75.
“The goal is not to postpone the title, but to win a raceAnd if winning a race postpones the title, we know that sooner or later he will get it. What we want is to win races, prepare for next year, keep learning, keep having perfect weekends where confidence is strengthened and more wins are achieved, “Sainz summed up.
The Spaniard, however, preferred to step aside when asked if this situation was due more to the advances in the car that the Austrians had made or to the failures of the Italianswhich often made them waste time in the pits or make mistakes in strategies, an aspect in which Red Bull stood out with Hannah Schmitz.
“If I knew, I would already have the solution -has condemned-. I think for a full year of F1 it is usually a combination of both, but mainly Red Bull has developed the car a lot, more than we expected with the budget cap situation. They have developed incredibly quickly. “
The witness case of the season was Monaco. There, Red Bull fine-tuned the tire strategy (new midsize) and Checo Pérez celebrated his first F1 win of the year, while Ferrari made a mistake in his own because he called the two drivers together to change. the tires for the second time for the new hard used ones. Sainz, therefore, entered first and Leclerc had to wait his turn, lost too much time and returned to the track fifth. And the anger was not saved, which he downloaded on the radio. “Why ?! What are they doing ?!”he shouted.
“it was a fucking disaster. The victory was clearly in our hands, we had the performance, we had everything. I just don’t understand the call I got and need some explanation for now. It was clearly a bad decision. We can’t do that, ”he said later that he ended up behind a podium consisting of Pérez, Sainz and Verstappen.
Leclerc was not afraid to mark the field for Ferrari in front of the media but the response of the Scuderia did not go well, allowing the wrestling between pilots after leaving the Monegasque at Le Castellet, where the Spaniard signed another exceptional performance, starting 19th and finishing fifth.
“I think it’s right, as a team, to give them the same opportunities, certainly at the start of the season and during the season. If necessary, we can designate who has the most chance of winning”Declared Mattia Binotto after the Italian GP. It wasn’t necessary.
Source: Clarin
