Formula 1 in 2022 had new car designs, a new driver, and a new circuit in Miami. As you would expect with winter testing, teams weren’t showing their true pace but did unveil their interpretations of the new regulations which were aimed at improving the racing by allowing the cars to follow each other more closely and winter testing just prepares everyone for a season of joy, if your driver has a successful season, or a season of pain if they don’t have a successful season. What constitutes a good season and a bad season is all dependent on the driver and team. If you’re in the top 3 teams (Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari) success will be winning races and the championship, if you’re in the midfield (McLaren, Alpine, Haas, Alpha Tauri, Alpha Romeo) success will be getting points and maybe the odd podium. For the back markers (Aston Martin, Williams) then success will be not finishing last each race and getting the odd point when on offer.
All the focus was on Mercedes at the second of the two winter tests after they brought a no-sidepod design which was weird to look at but there were big issues with the Mercedes with both George Russell and Lewis Hamilton both looking uncomfortable when they were testing. Even though Mercedes has looked slow compared to its rivals they have however been reliable compared to its rivals and have achieved a fair few podiums with both drivers most noticeably at the past 2 events in France and Hungary. Throughout the season Mercedes has consistently been the third fastest team behind Red Bull and Ferrari with a standout weekend at the British Grand Prix where they were in the hunt for getting the win and at the Hungarian Grand Prix which meant the team have now collected 11 podiums with their 2 drivers and a pole position in the form of Russell. In the drivers’ championship Russel (158) leads Hamilton (146) by 12 points while in the constructors’ championship Mercedes find themselves 3rd in the standings on 304 points, 30 points behind Ferrari and 205 points ahead of Alpine.
The reigning drivers champion Max Verstappen has taken a commanding lead in the drivers' championship going into the summer break with an 80-point lead over Charles Leclerc. It could easily be more given the early season reliability issues Red Bull was facing with the Dutchman picking up a DNF in Bahrain and Australia but you could argue that the points gap could be less if there weren’t mistakes for his rivals. Verstappen goes into the summer break carrying 8 victories and 10 podiums, which when you consider that Red Bull started the development of this year's car very late compared to its rivals, says a lot about how they are run with Christian Horner at the helm. Sergio Perez started the season in good form but in recent races with further development to the car, his performances have been nowhere near the level that the team needs from him. Perez does also have a win which came at Monaco, the race everyone wants to win and coming 2nd place isn’t the place you want to finish at a normal race never mind Monaco. Perez has re-signed with the team for the 2023 season and after winning the 2021 season, Verstappen is locked in till 2028. In the drivers’ championship Verstappen (258) leads Perez (173) by 85 points while Red Bull finds themselves 1st in the standings (431) points, 97 points ahead of Ferrari.
There’s a lot you can write about the season that the Scuderia are witnessing this season but simply put, oh Ferrari could you have bottled this season any harder, after having a promising start to the season with a 1-2 in Bahrain after Verstappen’s late retirement. We all know that Charles Leclerc is world championship material, even though you can make that argument for half a dozen on the F1 grid, but with Leclerc, the mistakes have been more visible this season than previous due to how good the Ferrari has been on most tracks. Imola springs to mind when chasing down Perez he took too much entrance kerb which resulted in a spin and contact with the tyre barrier which forced him to pit. A place on the podium and 15 points minimum ended up being P6 and only 8 points. This meant that Leclerc saw a 46-point advantage going into the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix shrink down to a 27-point lead and has since just been eaten into slowly but surely thanks to reliability issues and poor strategy calls. In the span of 3 races, Leclerc had lost out on 68 points due to 2 mechanical failures in Spain and Azerbaijan while a horrendous strategy call unravelled all his good work in changeable conditions in Monaco after not putting a foot wrong in the race. Carlos Sainz took a while to get used to the Ferrari but was not a million miles away from his team-mate with the pace he was also making a few mistakes whether it be in the race in Australia and got beached in the gravel or crashing in qualifying in Imola. Sainz did get his first career pole position at Silverstone in wet conditions after a spin for his team-mate which brought out the yellow flags and hindered Verstappen. On the same weekend, Sainz also managed to get his first career win after rightfully ignoring the team's request to stay behind Leclerc, because Ferrari being Ferrari bottled the decision to double stack the cars under the safety car. You can make the argument that the Leclerc/Perez/Hamilton battle helped Sainz win the race given the battle slowed them all down allowing Sainz to pull away. Ferrari needs a massive 2nd half of the season otherwise they could easily be overtaken by Mercedes for 2nd in the constructors' championship. In the drivers’ championship Leclerc (178) leads Sainz (156) by 22 points while in the constructors’ championship Ferrari is 2nd in the championship (334) points, 97 points off Red Bull and 30 points ahead of Mercedes.
McLaren isn’t having the season they would have wanted having come short of securing 3rd in the constructors’ championship last season but to find themselves locked in a battle with Alpine is something no one could have dreamt of. Lando Norris has once again shown the quality that he has in abundance with a podium at Imola and other strong points finishes that have put McLaren in the fight for P4 otherwise for everything good they’ve done to avoid repeating the dreadful ‘banter era’ with the Honda fiasco and not building good race cars. Then you have the other side of the garage with Daniel Ricciardo who we all know on his day is one of the best late breakers the sport has seen but for whatever reason since his move to McLaren something hasn’t been right. You can allow the first half of last season given it was his first year with the team so needs time to adapt but other than the win in Monza, what has been Ricciardo’s standout result? In the drivers' championship Norris (76) leads Ricciardo (19) by 56 points while McLaren sits in 5th in the constructors' (95) points, 4 behind Alpine and 44 ahead of Alfa Romeo.
It’s hard to tell if Alpine has made gains on McLaren or whether McLaren has gone backwards from 2021. Alpine is currently ahead of McLaren by 4 points. Their French driver Esteban Ocon (58) currently leads Fernando Alonso (41) in the standings with a 17-point gap between the pair. The team were able to take advantage of other teams' difficult start to the season by collecting points with both drivers in Bahrain. The first 3 races of the season saw Ocon score 20-points. Alonso on the other hand, Alonso was struggling to match Ocon’s results either to reliability issues with the Alpine or due to tyre performance. When F1 went to the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, Ocon would take the plaudits out of the two drivers scoring 4 points while Alonso was 0.102 seconds off Lance Stroll for the final points after receiving a penalty that forced him outside the top 10. The best team result was at the French Grand Prix with an 8th and a 6th place. The best individual result was a pair of 5th places for both drivers, Alonso had his at the British Grand Prix while Ocon had his a race later at the Austrian Grand Prix. In the drivers' championship, Ocon (58) leads Alonso (41) by 17 points while Alpine sits 4th in the constructors' championship (99), 4 ahead of McLaren and 205 behind Mercedes.
Alpha Tauri has been the most underwhelming team of the season compared to what they were achieving last year. So to have only 27 points on the board just goes to show that this new generation of the car has not suited the driving style of both drives, especially Pierre Gasly although looking at the driver standings Gasly is ahead of team-mate Yuki Tsunoda by 5 points yet in the races it looks as if Gasly struggles more out of the 2 of them. Looking at Gasly’s 2022 results then more times than not he has often finished outside the points, a season-best of 6th place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix back in June is all to shout about with Gasly. Gasly is currently on a pointless run that stems back to that 6th place so a big second half of the season is needed from the Frenchman, who’s already been confirmed to be remaining in the team for the 2023 season. Based on his results, Tsunoda has struggled in the races with a season-best of 7th at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix back in April but other than that his other best finish was 8th place at the season opener in Bahrain. Tsunoda is currently on a pointless run with his last points being scored at the Spanish Grand Prix back in May. If Gasly needs a big improvement in the second half of the season then Tsunoda needs to be even bigger given he hasn’t been confirmed in the team for next season. Gasly sits in 13th place in the driver's championship while Tsunoda sits in 16th place. In the drivers' championship, Gasly (16) leads Tsunoda (11) by 5 points while Alpha Tauri sits 8th in the constructors' championship (27), 7 ahead of Aston Martin and 7 behind Haas.
Oh Aston Martin how have you gone backwards, it was only 2 years ago you were fighting for 4th place in the constructors' title and now they’re the second slowest car on the grid just ahead of Williams Racing. You know the team is underperforming when a 4-time world champion would rather retire than sign a new deal even though that’s what both parties wanted. Sebastian Vettel is a character that everyone is going to miss at the end of the season when he leaves the sport and rightfully so given everything that the German driver has achieved in the sport both on and off track. A season best of 6th place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix securing 8 points for the team which is more points than what Lance Stroll has had all season. When it rains in qualifying Vettel has always had the pace to secure a strong result but for whatever reason, the results haven’t been there. Stroll on the other has really struggled for form this season with 4x10th place finishes as the only thing to shout about. Looking at the constructors’ championship, Aston Martin sits in 9th place on 20 points with Vettel securing 16 points while Stroll has only contributed 4 points. Don’t forget that Vettel has also done 2 fewer races than Stroll has done given he missed both the season opener in Bahrain and the 2nd race in Saudi Arabia as he suffered from covid-19. In the drivers' championship, Vettel (16) leads Stroll (4) by 12 points while Aston Martin sits 9th in the constructors' championship (20), 17 ahead of Williams and 7 behind Alpha Tauri.
It was also confirmed that Fernando Alonso would replace the retiring Vettel but the issue with that move is that if Aston Martin doesn’t give him the car to win or challenge for podiums then there will be some tension like there usually is with Alonso. So time will tell whether Alonso to Aston Martin is going to be a success or just be the case of another career being ended.
Williams Racing was coming off its best season in recent years after scoring 23 points in the 2021 season and finishing P8 in the constructors’ championship. It looked like they were going to struggle based on their pre-season when they were suffering from problem after problem. Their standout result as a team was Alex Albon’s P9 at the Miami Grand Prix when the Thai driver ended up taking advantage of other cars' failures and earning himself 2 championship points to take him onto 3 points. Nicholas Latifi’s best performance this season was at the British Grand Prix but it wasn’t actually for the race, it was for qualifying when he got the non-upgraded Williams and got into Q3. Sadly for the Canadian, it didn’t end in a points finish meaning he is still waiting to score his first points of the season. In the drivers' championship, Albon (3) leads Latifi (0) by 3 points while Williams sits 10th in the constructors' championship (3), 17 points behind Aston Martin.
Alfa Romeo went into the 2022 season with a new driver lineup with Valtteri Bottas joining from Mercedes and Chinese rookie Guanyu Zhou. The first race of the season was a great points return for the team with Bottas finishing in 6th place scoring 8 points while Zhou finished in P10 scoring points on his debut after starting P15. There have been 2 races that have seen the team get their best points return, the first time it happened was at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix with Bottas finishing in 5th place scoring 10 points and at the Canadian Grand Prix when Bottas scored a 7th place finish securing 6 points and Zhou scoring an 8th place finish securing 4 points. In the drivers' championship, Zhou surprisingly has only scored 5 points which is less than what I thought he had scored and currently finds himself sitting in 17th place while team-mate Bottas sits in 9th place with 46 points scored. The team finds themselves sitting in 6th place in the constructors’ championship 44 points behind McLaren and 17 ahead of Haas. The last 4 races have also seen the team score 0 points which is not what is expected from the team given how revitalised the team appear to be this season. In the drivers' championship, Bottas (46) leads Zhou (5) by 41 points while Alfa Romeo sits 6th in the constructors' championship (51), 17 ahead of Haas and 44 behind McLaren.
Haas was the only team to bring no upgrades to their 2021 car to focus on the development of the new generation car. They also had a new driver with Kevin Magnussen returning to the sport after being dropped at the end of the 2020 season, replacing Nikita Mazepin. After the chequered flag, Magnussen showed that the year out didn’t affect his speed after qualifying in P7 to finish in P5. In the early part of the season, it was Magnussen who would do the points scoring and that is nothing against Mick Schumacher because Mick was getting good qualifying positions but just wasn’t able to deliver on Sundays through driver mistakes or reliability issues. It was the British Grand Prix when Schumacher would score his first points in his F1 career with an 8th place finish and in truth, it could have been P7 if Max Verstappen wasn’t aggressive in his defending. The team would also score their first double-points finish since 2020 with Magnussen finishing P10 and scoring the last point on offer. Better was to come for the team at the Austrian Grand Prix with Magnussen scoring 2 points in the sprint race ahead of the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton while Schumacher finished in 9th place for the main race. Moving onto the main race Schumacher had a career-best finish of 6th place and scored 8 points while Magnussen finished 8th place to score 12 points for the team. In the drivers’ championship Magnussen (22) leads Schumacher (12) by 10 points and in the constructors’ championship, Haas is 7th in the standings 17 points behind Alfa Romeo and 7 ahead of Alpha Tauri.
Driver of the season:
The driver of the season for me is Max Verstappen, to be leading the championship in the manner that he is after overcoming some early season reliability issues is incredible. After suffering his second DNF at the Australian Grand Prix, he was 46 points off the championship lead held by Charles Leclerc and to now be in a position where he is leading by 80 points is just unimaginable coming towards the end of the summer break. I would go as far as to say that this version of Max Verstappen is even better than the one we saw for most of last season. Verstappen’s speed has been scary this season and he has been so consistent. His lowest finishing position, when he hasn’t retired from the race, is 7th and even then he sustained damage. When he’s not had any damage then his lowest position has been 3rd place in Monaco.
Surprise of the season:
The positive surprise of the season has been George Russell in his first season at Mercedes. Everyone thought that he would be comfortably beaten by Lewis Hamilton but in truth, Russell has taken the fight at Mercedes and has adapted to this Mercedes quicker than his team-mate. Russell has 5 podiums this season which is 1 less than Hamilton and the same amount of podiums as championship contender Charles Leclerc in the Ferrari. It does show that even though Mercedes has struggled, more than other teams with the porpoising, the car is also very reliable compared to Red Bull and Ferrari. Russell isn’t a million miles away from 2nd in the championship, will he get 2nd I don’t think so but given how many points Ferrari has thrown away through driver mistakes and reliability issues but if Russell was to get 3rd in the championship ahead of both Ferrari’s and behind both Red Bull’s then he would have to be the driver of the season no matter what.
The negative surprise of the season has been Aston Martin and just how poorly they have been this season. When Lawrence Stroll became chairman and brought the Aston Martin name back into the sport but under his guidance, the team seem to be falling back down the order. Aston Martin had a 5-year plan to win and given this is year 2 of the project they look miles away from reaching that winning status in year 5. They’re losing Sebastian Vettel at the end of the season and replacing him with Fernando Alonso, but just how long will it take until Alonso gets fed up with the lack of progress made by the team? It’s all well and good saying that you’ve got a new wind tunnel coming at the end of the year or early 2023 but where will the team be racing in terms of its opposition? They are only faster than Williams which isn’t a good sales pitch to possible investors to the team so progress needs to be made quickly for them to progress up the pitch.
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