Welcome to This Week, or could it be This Month we haven’t yet worked this out for race weekends.
This Week replaces Reporters, it will bring together the headlines from the last week or two, looking at how the week developed, what it could mean for the week ahead, and analysis of the bigger picture. We will try every time to bring you news from every team, but obviously, that depends on whether they’re talking.
F1 restarted slowly as it often does following the Christmas break, but 2022 started how 2021 ended with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. As a new president takes charge at the FIA he faces the same problems, governance, how to resolve the bitterness between Mercedes and Red Bull, and the potential disruption caused by Omicron to the calendar as a third season could be disrupted by the pandemic.
General News
The fallout from the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix looks set to continue, this week the newly elected FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem says the governing body needs to be “proactive rather than reactive” in resolving the sporting regulations. You need to think that while the result will not be changed, the system needs looking at.
Mercedes
Toto Wolff told the Spanish edition of Motorsport.com, the sport needs to implement more changes than just “replacing the race director”. This story needs to result in the change you think need to wait until the next Commission meeting until we see what possible solutions to prevent a repeat.
George Russell joins Mercedes this year and he is expecting it to be “the most intense year of my life” as he gets the opportunity to join Mercedes. He says that both on and off-track the season to be intense, as the world starts to return to normal as we start to live with coronavirus.
I’m not expecting Russell to be there in Bahrain on the same level as Lewis Hamilton, once he gets comfortable, I think he will be able to challenge his teammate. If he is in the battle, can he fight for wins and the championship?
Red Bull
Sergio Perez was in his own words “slow to adapt” when he joined Red Bull last season as the car was a “very different philosophy” to what he previously drove. Perez was a little bit further behind early on, but we know Adrian Newey is known for designing cars that require a very aggressive driving style.
It will be interesting with the clean slate this season because of the regulation change whether the team move the philosophy more towards Perez.
Ferrari
Ferrari believes it would be “very naive” to think it will be easy to catch Red Bull and Mercedes because of this year’s regulation changes. The regulation changes do create a chance for the grid to be shaken up, but the feeling maybe is it wouldn’t be as dramatic as we would have liked.
I think 2022 is a huge year for Ferrari and Mattia Binotto, given Ferrari’s history of removing team bosses as referenced by Ross Brawn in his book. Could this however also be the team trying to play this down, maybe similar to Mercedes in 2017, these are bigger changes though.
The team also in recent weeks confirmed Antonio Giovinazzi as their reserve driver, with Haas driver Mick Schumacher when the Italian is racing in Formula E. Mattia Binotto has already hinted of the almost certain contract extension for Carlos Sainz saying say they are expecting to have an “easy discussion”
Lando Norris meanwhile says since Carlos Sainz joined Ferrari last year people have realised what he is capable of. He also says “I think I got shadowed a bit by him, because he was doing an exceptional job.” Thinking back to 2019-20 they were two drivers which stood out for me, we often talk about the new generation coming through and they are members of that group.
McLaren
Daniel Ricciardo had a difficult 2021, reflecting on the season in an interview this week he says before his win at Monza he lost “a little bit of faith” and started second-guessing himself. I think listening and reading things the general feeling was a surprise given his strong reputation.
Meanwhile Zak Brown has said he is hoping that “three or four” teams can compete until the final race. Brown seems to me to be one of these CEO’s who can maybe see the bigger picture and is still a fan of the sport, but one of the big unknowns is whether the top two teams can stay in front, whether another team could join them or even a new team leading.
It’s certain it looks like McLaren is on the up, but I don’t think over the last decade got it right to be challenging consistency for championships following regulation changes. This time might be different as we know since 2017 there has been a lot of investment and restructuring since the coup which removed Ron Dennis.
Alpine
Since Renault brought back Lotus in 2016 the team, now Alpine has been targeting a return to the front. In his first interview of 2022, executive director, Marcin Budkowski believes the progress his team is making on its new car is “very encouraging” for next season.
We know they had a five-year plan to return to the front, coupled with the regulation changes, for everyone in the midfield we know is looking to try and join the midfield. But the truth is we won’t know until the Sakhir (Second) Test.
Aston Martin
Otmar Szafnauer has left the Silverstone team after twelve years, this comes after he played down reports in November last year when Aston Martin announced Martin Whitmarsh as its new Group CEO. The timing was a little bit surprising coming the day after he gave an interview where he spoke about the positive prospects for 2022.
I wonder could there have been a power struggle, but we may have to wait years and never find out. There were unconfirmed reports, which we are unable to verify, that there was a power struggle and suggestions that he said the 2020 was ‘completely illegal.’
Haas
Haas were a surprise towards the end of last season despite not developing its car, despite spending most of last year at the back. Team principal Gunther Steiner says he found it “very odd” that they closed the gap to the midfield, in what we know was going to be a transitional year.
Despite not scoring points, in Doha and Abu Dhabi, Schumacher managed to out-qualify Alfa Romeo and in Jeddah was less than a tenth off Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll in qualifying. Steiner says that he believes that the other teams should have created a bigger gap because the team weren’t developing.
The Week Ahead
I think next week we are going to have a similar week in terms of the sport waking up after Christmas, the only team we haven’t really heard from this week is Williams. January tends to be quiet in terms of news, but there are always a few, the thing I am waiting for following the Novak Djokovic saga, are we going to be able to go to Melbourne in April.
The story which appears not to be going away, well in terms of what changes need to be made is the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. We are still yet to hear a reaction as I’m writing this on Friday from Lewis Hamilton, but I think we will in time. But from what we know he has been bruised by what happened.
We need to remember people are only just starting to come back from Christmas break, so they might not be ready to start talking about the year ahead. We also have Autosport coming up in a few week’s time, until we get the line-up we don’t know how important it will be this year.
