Formula1 2022 has brought in radically different regulations with respect to car designs, allowing closer battles between cars. This meant that every team built a brand new car design this year.
New Cars Of 2022
The pre season testing reinforces that Formula 1’s engineers are the best in the business. They built, modified and upgraded their cars in a really short time. During the testing in Barcelona, we saw many teams struggling with porpoising. These teams rapidly prototyped and deployed their solutions in a really short time.
Reliability issues could have been the order of the day as all the teams have built new cars for the very first time. To the contrary, most teams have built a reliable car that ran without any problems.
One of the reasons for the changes in regulations is to make sure that cars can follow easily. Although, we haven’t seen this in an actual race, the tests done in the pre-season testing look promising. Cars are able to follow each other closely even in dirty air. The races this year are gonna be spectacular!!
Different side pod designs.
Contrary to the view that the rules are prescriptive and all the teams would come up with similar designs, the teams have taken radically different approaches to side pod designs and they all look very different from each other.
Struggles
- Porpoising was the big talking point in Barcelona test. And even though the teams have built interesting solutions and some have even solved the issue in Bahrain, we are yet to see if the issue will occur again and whether it will vary between track to track.
- Mercedes have come out with a radically new design to the sidepods this year. They were seen struggling with the porpoising problems in Bahrain and seem to be on the back foot. Let’s see if they will bounce back in the first race itself or other teams take lead.
- Haas has struggled in the Barcelona test. That said, they seem promising with some good performances during the pre-season testing. If they resolve the reliability issues, they will be in a strong position to take lead over the bottom teams. They also have their old driver, Kevin Magnussen back in the team and he could provide them a solid start this year.
- McLaren seemed to have struggled in Bahrain even though they looked strong in Barcelona. It would be interesting to see if they can come back strongly in the first few races.
Some teams have got it right!
- Ferrari looks mighty strong. They have one of the best cars in terms of reliability and their package looks really strong. Their driver line-up, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclare is among the best in the paddock.
2. Redbull is keen to retain the championship. Even though they didn’t want to reveal their performance, they brought in a lot of upgrades on the very last day and went directly to the top of the timings sheet. Max Verstappen even suggested that this performance is still not their best and the will be even stronger during the races.
The pre season testing have brought some understandings of the pecking order and reliability. It’s nice to see teams going with different directions with their car design. The 2022 races will bring in a lot more closer battles. The pecking order will be shuffled. Personally, I will be waiting to see Ferrari and Redbull :)
