F1 2022 Season Predictions

Hello, BTL Blog team are back! Refreshed and roaring to go! We give our predictions for the upcoming 2022 F1 season!

A new year, new era, new teammates and new regulations... anything is possible and we can't wait!

This season also brings a stricter cost cap, there’s a greater chance for teams that were previously back-markers to be in the mix of the midfield. Of course, money doesn’t guarantee success, but it does help. Take Ferrari for example, they have the greatest income through sponsors, yet they only finished 6th at the end of 2020. What matters is having the best engineers, strategists, and drivers. We won’t know the pecking order of car performance until the first 3 races but we can get a rough idea by having a look at pre-season testing. It appears the top 2 teams are Red Bull and Ferrari. The biggest struggle appeared to be Alfa Romeo with reliability issues.

The driver line-up has changed also. Haas F1 team delighted the world with a shock return of Kevin Magnussen following the termination of Nikita Mazepin’s contract due to sanctions placed on Russian citizens. Alexander Albon has also returned signing for Williams whilst still being part of the Red Bull family. Speaking of which, Pierre Gasly is surely very frustrated, and will be hoping for a move else where if he is not able to make a return to the main Red Bull team for 2023. He has definitely outgrown Alpha Tauri and has proven to be worthy of a race winning team. Bottas and Zhou team up for the all-new Alfa Romeo line-up, with the Finn hoping to lead the team. Let’s now take a look at our predictions.

Arabella:

I think we all know that there is going to be a lot of changed to the coming year in f1, however, I cannot see any of the top 4 teams changing much.

Mercedes- with George now at Mercedes, I think the future looks bright for both Brits filling the seats at Merc. I find it hard to believe that we will see them fall off top spot of WCC for the next few years.

Red bull- in my opinion, redbull will stay as a strong contender against merc however not quite clench the WCC. With all honesty, I think Max will keep his WDC however I think Lewis will be very close behind with it coming down to the last few races one again.

A notable mention includes Alfa Romeo, with the rookie Guanyu Zhou & ex Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas. I think 2022 will be a year for development into the midfield for the team, making them much stronger for the 2023 season. I think 7th position in the constructors seems appropriate for this year, however I think for the next few years coming, Alpine & Aston Martin need to watch out.

Alvi:

With the end of the widebody F1 car philosophy introduced in 2017, 2022 is shaping up to be the most unpredictable year Formula One has ever seen. Alongside the $140 million cost cap, the new 2022 chassis & aero regulations aim to encourage closer racing rather than outright speed. In this article I’ll be going through my 2022 predictions. Bare in mind these are just my own opinions.

The first thing we must consider is allocation of resources shared between 2021 and 2022. Mercedes and Red Bull had a title fight on their hands meaning they still had everything to play for so they still would’ve focused some development on their 2021 projects. Red Bull’s final upgrade came in at the 20th race at Qatar. Mercedes had also suffered considerable performance losses due to the new floor regulations throughout the first half of the season. It's safe to assume that these two teams will spend the winter break catching up on development for 2022.

A backmarker team such as Haas considered the past season to be a write off as they had nothing to lose and did not bring any enhancements to the car post pre-season testing. This is why I wasn’t surprised to see them 2-3 seconds off the pace of the front runners. Team Principal Guenther Seiner decided to devote his resources for 2022. Although to some fans this may be a smarter plan than that of Mercedes and Red Bull, we have to consider that these front running teams have much more personnel and greater facilities so there is no guarantee that the pecking order will change as much even with a regulation reset.

10th Place: Alfa Roemo

I know its bold but with Zhou’s backing and Bottas’ experience and understanding on what it takes to win, Alfa Romeo could’ve had a chance to progress this year. But with Alfa Romeo hoping to distant themselves a bit more from Ferrari, they’ve opted to design their own gear box for the first time since its return to F1. In pre-season testing they suffered many issues with the gearbox resulting in poor pace and very few laps.

9th Place: Aston Martin

With the recent announcement that Otmar Szafnauer would leave the Silverstone based team, my hopes for Aston Martin aren’t that high. In my opinion, he was the most important factor for the team. Since this new era affects all teams, Aston Martin cannot rely on previous Mercedes unlisted parts to help improve the performance of their car even if they have a technical partnership. Why? Because these components wouldn’t comply to this year’s regulation.

8th Place: Williams

In this day and age, cash is king. And with Red Bull recruitment Alex Albon, the team have got a rather competitive driver pairing for the incoming season. With Dorilton Capital’s investment, I do believe the Grove team can conjure up a beast to write off its recent history. Both Alon and Latifi have been teammates before in Formula 2 at DAMS and both know how to score points. The Nutella king has strong race pace but needs to become more consistent during qualifying. Testing didn’t show the true pace of the FW44 as their fastest laps were set on the C4 and C3 tyre.

7th Place; Haas

I honestly do believe that Haas will be able to design a competitive car for 2022 given the fact that they have focused all their resources for 2022. With Mick Schumacher being a proven talent winning both F2 & F3, I believe he will be able to showcase his abilities. K-Mag’s shock return could definitely benefit Haas as he has many years of experience with the team and knows how to get things done

6th Place: Alpine

I’m not entirely confident in Alpine in times of Regulation change. Historically as Renault, the team struggled with new regulations and appeared to meet the level of the opposition a little too late. Also, the unorganised leadership and management structure at Alpine can only lead to deficiencies across the whole team however, I do have faith in Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon, I just don’t believe they have the machinery to deliver and fight for podiums.

5th Place: McLaren

Let’s be real, Norris had a pretty good season and Ricciardo had a pretty poor season, if you disregard his win in Monza. Now Daniel does seem to do really well on his second year at whatever team he’s on, but I do believe that he’s passed his prime and that will be the reason why McLaren don’t finish higher than 5th in the standings. However, I wouldn’t be mad if they proved me wrong.

4th Place: Alpha Tauri

First of all, Pierre Gasly was arguably the 3rd best driver along Carlos Sainz last year, given the fact that he was in the 6th fastest car, so I’m pretty sure Gasly will carry the Red Bull sister team once again. Yuki did finally come strong towards the end of 2021 so I do believe he is more complete than last year. Now anyone employed at Red Bull has the fluidity to be placed in Alpha Tauri wherever sees fit. Therefore, I believe Christian Horner will move Senior employees around in order to help out the two Red Bull owned teams. This is why I think there will be a fight for 4th with McLaren

3rd Place: Mercedes

It’s a three-way fight for the title!! Unfortunately, I do think that Lewis Hamilton and George Russel will create another toxic environment for Mercedes which could cost them important points throughout the year. Not only that, but power unit reliability has also been a reoccurring issue over the past few seasons for the team and I don’t know whether that will be fixed anytime soon. Obviously, we can never know but I do believe that Brackley boys could have a title contending car, just not the right personnel in terms of their own goals.

2nd Place: Red Bull

Personally, I do believe Perez is not all that of a driver compared to the rest of the field. Yes, his tyre management is second to none but can that always makeup for his qualifying pace with alternate strategies. Max as always will get the job done and I do think the Bull will be one of the best cars we have seen ever in the sport’s history. The team had claimed that the car is as fast as the RB16B.

1st Place: Ferrari

Sainz and Leclerc is already a dream partnership and with the stained reputation, the Scuderia have, they’d want to show their fans what they are truly made of. Stating that they have the most competitive engine on the grid and have deployed all resources on to this year’s project, what’s there to stop us from believing that the prancing horse is back on top.

Now I’m not saying that Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari will end up in this order. I think it will be a three-way showdown in the final race at Abu Dhabi for both Drivers and Constructors titles. What I believe is that it will be more down to the drivers, Race Engineers and strategies over the actual Machinery.

Caitlyn:

I'm optimistic and excited for this upcoming season. I just hope the new regulation's live up to our exceptions for closer racing and move overtakes opportunites, fingers crossed.

In terms of the teams, there's no doubt that Mercedes and Red Bull will be competing against one another to come out on top as the races progresses, a very interesting game of cat and mouse throughout this season, Lewis will put his all into it to clench the championship while Max will prove his all for another win . George Russell has shown his capabilities to the team prior and I think overall he will be a good addition and as teammates they will work well together .

I really feel like Ferrari are the one's to watch this year, pushing McLaren to deliver. Alfa Romeo are in promising contention to return to mid field with Bottas' Mercedes experience and Zhu coming onboard to prove himself. As for Alpha Tauri, Alpine and Aston Martin, I'm looking forward to seeing who will prevail from all three teams, not discounting Williams of course .

It's really anyone's game as this will be a season unlike any other, who will rise and who will fail, all beginning to come to light this Sunday, seeing how each team cope throughout the races and I can't wait!

Lenny:

The 2022 season of Formula 1 opens a new chapter of opportunity for the teams and drivers competing to grab podiums, collect race wins and be in the running to put two hands on those drivers and constructors’ championship trophies.

Turning a new page in Formula 1 in 2022 comes with a complete overhaul in technological regulations on these racing machines.

The car's design was set to return the cars to the close battles we endured in seasons like 2012 and 2010. The classic concept of ground effect dominated the aerodynamics of F1 in the late ’70s and early 80’s, pioneered by Colin Chapman’s Lotus, it aimed to increase downforce and levels of grip to achieve the fastest possible speeds through the fastest corners on the calendar. Consequently, in the 1978 season, Lotus came out victorious, Andretti 1st and Peterson 2nd, with a combined 9 race win from 16 in the overall season which portrayed the dominance that Lotus had in the season. Unlike the dominance of the illustrious John Player sponsored car with its black and gold design, other teams like Merzario tried out the effect with little known knowledge of how to perfectly develop it, being at a much lower research budget than the titans of the ’70s. Hence this created safety issues with the cars behaving in such a way that the ground effect had to be banned indefinitely.

The key concept of this change is getting rid of the complex aerodynamic structures on the car around the two wings and bargeboard. In the previous generation of cars, this was creating a 45% loss of downforce when following a car. Formula 1 is taking a measured approach with this new design and in simulations, as I assume everyone and their mothers have heard, the loss is now only at 5%-10% when following a car behind. This means there is a cleaner flow of air which may allude to more overtaking opportunities around our favourite Grand Prix circuits. Dare I imagine two cars going nip and tuck around in Mexico’s second sector whereby they are both pushing the limits of their rival. Now that would show progress.

One big story already in the world in Formula 1 is the rumours of engine advancements. As 2022 commenced there was a story raging that Alpine believed they had an engine to rival the top runners, with Spanish media calling the said engine a bomb, obviously we hope that doesn’t mean we will be seeing engine covers fly off in different directions in a massive explosion. Ferrari was also claiming in early January that it has significantly updated its ICE and made changes “under the bodywork” for its 2022 competitor. Reminiscing back to the illustrious run from Spa to Singapore where the team seemed to shun away from any competition due to their apparent developments in engine power over the summer break, before falling away immediately in races to follow with no sign of this increased top speed seen at the Temple of Speed. However, Binotto has told the press that the Internal Combustion Engine is ‘significantly different’. Just remember before you think this is a small intimidation tactic, Ferrari’s chairman John Elkann told the Tifosi to not expect wins until 2022 at the earliest. Does this potentially mean that they have been putting a lot of development into the 2022 car in comparison to the ever-developing Red Bull who could be on the back step after putting all their resources into helping Max Verstappen to grasp his first championship?

Another exciting thing about the new season on the horizon is the change in drivers entering and exiting teams and the grid in general. We see the first Chinese driver to ever race in Formula 1 in the form of Guanyu Zhou, who’s taken the seat of Antonio Giovinazzi, which was won over, believed due to a large injection of cash into the Alfa Romeo team from Zhou’s backers. Not taking away from his performances in Formula 2, where he finished 3rdoverall, but fans have to question was money over talent correct in this transfer when the likes of Nyck de Vries is standing in the shadows of a Formula 1 drive after conquering the Formula E scene.

As well as this, we finally get to see the emergence of Mr Saturday himself, George Russell, again in the Silver Arrows machine. This time as a full-time driver, replacing Valterri Bottas, giving him the perfect chance for the Brit to show his true colours in a car that is always going to be up there fighting for victories, unlike the Williams in the past few years since Russell graduated from Formula 2. However, the pressure which was lacking in the Williams will be tested this year as Russell told motorsport.com earlier this year that 2022 will be the ‘most intense year of his life’ and goodness I would be the same if I was being directly compared to a 7 Time World Champion. But as seen in his race at Sahkir 2020, when he got his boyhood dream opportunity of competing in the Mercedes car, he has the pace to challenge the best in the paddock, only losing out on a win due to pit stop troubles. Could Mercedes once again be a formidable force with arguably the best driver combination on the grid?

Even though this season is going to promote the closest racing for over a decade, do not forget these machines are different to anything we have seen in the past, these new technical regulations are the biggest jump in over 40 years according to Christian Horner when speaking at Red Bull’s 2022 car livery release. So don’t expect every team to hit the nail on the head, we could be seeing a new emergent, or we could see one of the front runners miss the trick and could see a demise similar to Ferrari in 2020.

So, that was our BTL blog team’s predictions. I wonder who’s was most accurate. I just wish for a tasteful race this Sunday. What do you guys think? Let us know in the comment section. - Alvi.