The 10 stories to watch out for across the rest of the 2022 F1 season

Strictly speaking, halfway through Formula 1’s summer break, we’re not at the exact midway point of the season. That came at the finish of the Austrian Grand Prix in early July, when Charles Leclerc’s attacking victory over Max Verstappen had made it two successive Ferrari wins and raised the faint possibility of the Italian team reanimating its failing world title bids.

Then came Paul Ricard and Leclerc’s error to crash out of the race lead, just as he’d forced Red Bull into putting Verstappen onto an inferior strategy, and the Hungaroring, where Ferrari’s strategy shambles aided Verstappen’s brilliant rise to victory from 10th on the grid, his eighth win of the campaign to the three of Leclerc, and an 80-point lead.

To call that a commanding position is actually underplaying it. But there are still nine races of the campaign to go and, while Verstappen appears to be strolling towards a second championship, there are 10 key themes to track from here to November’s Abu Dhabi finale.

Mercedes has been one of the teams worst hit by the porpoising phenomenon

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

1. The impact of the FIA’s porpoising crackdown

It’s been the major tech story of F1’s first season back running ground-effects cars. It comes with many names – bouncing, hopping, bottoming out – but most know it as porpoising.

It’s a rather all-encompassing term for the aerodynamic phenomenon that has long been encountered in many motorsport series. But with the teams’ windtunnel running capped at 50 metres per second to save costs, it simply didn’t appear in their simulations ahead of the pre-season testing.

Everyone knows about it now, with the FIA spurred into action on fixing the problem after June’s Azerbaijan round. There, the long straights compressed suspensions at top speed, which left the drivers with even less support than usual as their cars struck the Baku streets, albeit to varying degrees across the field.

A political saga followed the FIA’s announcement at the Canadian GP that it would establish a metric to measure porpoising and force teams running outside the subsequently set limits to change the set-ups of their cars on safety grounds. But this took on a different dimension when investigations revealed that some teams had been deploying clever flexi-floor tricks to avoid plank wear, effectively gaining performance while remaining technically legal. This will be effectively banned from the season-recommencing Belgian GP, where skid blocks will have to be stiffer and measured differently to ensure compliance.

PLUS: The complexities contributing to F1’s current bouncing storm

This change could shake up the competitive order across the grid. Ferrari has confirmed that it will be altering its car around the changes, with Red Bull publicly resolute that it will not do the same. The true impact will finally be seen at Spa.

In Baku, only one team – Mercedes – was understood to have been running outside the tolerance of the FIA’s Aerodynamic Oscillation Metric (AOM). It has been the most vocal in calling for the FIA’s intervention given its severe porpoising problems, but may in fact be most impacted by the coming changes, a risk it says it’s running for the good of the championship.

Verstappen holds an 80-point lead in the F1 standings over the summer break

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

2. Red Bull’s only threat comes from within

Mercedes may be set for a step back at Spa after working its way back towards the front of the grid. Lewis Hamilton entered the break with a five-race podium streak, while George Russell took pole in Hungary. And this is actually best for Red Bull.

Max Verstappen’s squad has produced a car that’s kind on its tyres and in contention at every race, if not leading the way; the Dutchman’s struggles with slow-speed understeer on the 2022 Pirelli tyres and the Red Bull’s remaining excess weight, especially on low fuel, means he trails Charles Leclerc 7-3 in the pole count.

Verstappen’s points gap to Leclerc is the biggest of the season so far, and well over double the 33 that was his largest margin to main rival Hamilton in 2021. So having Hamilton and Russell finish ahead of the Ferraris at any races is a bonus, as Verstappen acknowledges.

“It’s good that they are competitive because then they can steal more points off Ferrari,” he said after his Hungary win. “So, I’m very happy. They’re doing very well.”

Other than the slim possibility that it’s Red Bull rather than Ferrari that is hurt more by the upcoming porpoising clampdown, the only real threat to Verstappen’s position seems to be from within. And this is that Red Bull’s planned partnership with Porsche – set to come in with the 2026 engine rule changes, with the manufacturer owning 50% of Red Bull’s F1 operation – is still yet to be formally confirmed. That represents a possible distraction given the huge ramifications it has for Red Bull’s F1 future, albeit at a team that is yet to be knocked off its stride in 2022.

PLUS: The driver who ended the curse of Red Bull’s second F1 seat

Ferrari has made too many mistakes to put up a sustained title fight against Red Bull

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

3. Ferrari’s last hopes to turn the tide of blunders

“It’s not a matter of bad luck, and there is nothing to change as well,” Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto said after the Hungarian GP.

That was a race Ferrari should have dominated with the characteristics of its downforce-packed car, and Red Bull pair Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez starting way down the order. But the team contrived to capitulate once again, putting Charles Leclerc on the disastrous C2 hard tyres and watching Verstappen blast past, twice, in the race’s second half.

This followed Ferrari’s Monaco GP missteps in the rain – mainly on Leclerc’s strategy – and its Silverstone and Red Bull Ring team-orders messes. At Paul Ricard, Carlos Sainz, who has had the main share of Ferrari’s poor pitstops so far this year, ended up with a bizarre strategy, and was even called in while in full battle with Perez.

In the modern age, mid-season team personnel changes are unlikely and rather unwise. Ferrari is simply going to have to do better with what it has to stop costing itself points. This may also be a factor in the errors its drivers have made, such as Leclerc’s Imola off and Paul Ricard crash, plus Sainz going through a red light in the pits in France. It cannot be discounted that they are pushing too much to make up for their team’s deficiencies.

PLUS: The elements Ferrari must resolve to first save face, then win championships

This includes poor reliability, which will mean further grid penalties if Ferrari updates its engine as expected. But if this fixes its issues and provides a performance boost, then Leclerc and Sainz will at least make every contest interesting, even if Verstappen remains out of reach in the championship points.

At least one Mercedes driver has been on the podium in the last six races but so far neither Russell or Hamilton have reached the top step

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

4. Mercedes’ quest to end its victory drought

George Russell’s Hungary efforts may have ended Mercedes’ 13-race streak without a pole, but the team that has won the past eight constructors’ titles is still looking back to the disgraceful 2021 Saudi Arabian GP as its last victory. How it goes about ending that win drought will be a theme to watch over the rest of 2022.

PLUS: How Russell has proven he deserves to be Hamilton's Mercedes heir

“We’re just starting to get to a stage now where we can get back to what we would call the ‘business-as-usual’ development,” said Mercedes director of trackside engineering Andrew Shovlin at the French GP. This followed the team “really firefighting” the porpoising problems the W13 suffered so dramatically early in the season, first with end-of-straight bouncing and then in-corner hopping.

But Mercedes finally seems to have eliminated both and so can start to focus on making its package faster, alongside designing the 2023 car. Given the infancy of this rules package, any work completed on the 2022 cars will have a lasting impact into next season. And that’s even considering that the AOM findings may mean car alterations, plus the incoming rule changes mandating higher floor edges and diffuser throats for next year.

Ocon put up a stern defence against Alonso in Hungary before the Spaniard dropped a bombshell on Alpine by switching to Aston Martin for 2023

Photo by: Alpine

5. Alpine’s on and off-track driver fights

Well, few saw that coming. Until the Hungarian GP, it was well understood in the paddock that Alpine would be retaining Fernando Alonso alongside Esteban Ocon for 2023. Then Sebastian Vettel’s retirement announcement and Lawrence Stroll’s quick moves to sign Alonso changed it all, with Alpine reserve Oscar Piastri also moving to cut ties with the organisation that has backed his career since 2020.

If, as expected, Piastri lands at McLaren for 2023, possibly with fellow Australian Daniel Ricciardo coming the other way and returning to the team he so swiftly abandoned in 2020, Alpine will have quite the amount of brand damage to fix. It just doesn’t look good to have Alonso leave the team that had rebuilt so much in recent years – and was preparing a post-F1-career LMDh berth for him – and manage to lose prized asset Piastri at the same time.

PLUS: The traits that fuelled Alonso's unexpected Aston Martin move

Was all that a factor in Ocon’s very aggressive defence throughout the first lap of the Hungarian GP? It’s understood that, as of that Sunday evening, Alpine was sure that Alonso would be staying but, with the Spaniard now set to depart, the gloves may really come off on-track for Alpine too.

Vettel waves goodbye to F1 at the end of the season and could end his career on 299 starts

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

6. The message of Vettel’s F1 farewell

“I would say he’s one of the few people that made [life in F1] not feel lonely.” There can’t really be much higher testament to Sebastian Vettel’s character than this line in Lewis Hamilton’s tribute to his former title rival, after it was announced that the German would be retiring at the end of this season. There were plaudits across the grid, and even hopes that he will remain to advise the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association in a non-competing capacity.

Vettel now has nine grands prix left to run, which, if he starts them all, will mean he retires on 299. That’s a Jackie Stewartesque number (in his case 99) – missing a milestone but adding to the legend. And so the Vettel farewell has begun.

He’s never been afraid to speak his mind, in recent years speaking out so eloquently on important topics such as the climate crisis and improving life for the LGBTQ+ community. F1 will be listening to his final words as an active driver, also eager to hear what he has planned for life away from the paddock.

OPINION: Why Vettel's retirement is a huge loss for F1 on and off-track

McLaren has struggled to meet expectations in 2022 and has still only mustered a single podium as it continues to feel the impact of its disrupted pre-season test programme

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

7. McLaren’s remaining 2022 focus

So many teams were hoping for a big upswing in their fortunes in the championship’s latest rules reset. With a strong first test, McLaren looked to be continuing its post-Honda recovery. But this picture was drastically altered by a blighted Bahrain test that the team is still feeling the pain from, simply in terms of time lost solving its brake problems that has diverted attention from finding performance elsewhere from a tricky MCL36 package that even Lando Norris says doesn’t suit his ideal driving style.

Like Mercedes, the team will feel the benefit of further upgrades brought to the car over the rest of this season moving on into 2023. There, McLaren will be hoping that it can lift itself away from its current results plateau, still just adrift of the leading teams. It held off on introducing big upgrades until the final 2022 cost cap was set to help with the dramatic inflation rises, so can still make further progress, even while devoting ever more resources towards its 2023 project.

At the same time, McLaren has a driver problem. With Daniel Ricciardo still far off Norris’s level (he has 25% of the Briton’s points haul so far), it has apparently moved to replace him with Oscar Piastri. The team cannot afford to let this drag on into a saga, while keeping its driver line-up motivated to grab the results that will bring additional prize money and, consequently, more future pace.

Zhou has impressed Alfa Romeo and is expected to stay on next year

Photo by: Antonin Vincent / DPPI

8. How the rest of the 2023 driver market moves play out

Alpine and McLaren headline the open – or not, if the questions over Daniel Ricciardo’s seat reach the FIA’s Contract Recognition Board – slots for 2023. Everything else is sealed up at Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin.

The rest all have at least one driver signed for next season, but the futures of Yuki Tsunoda at AlphaTauri, Nicholas Latifi at Williams, Mick Schumacher at Haas and Zhou Guanyu at Alfa Romeo are not secured at the time of writing.

PLUS: The under-fire F1 driver fighting for his future

Tsunoda and Zhou are expected to get new contracts at their current squads. Red Bull doesn’t have a junior protege clearly ready to threaten Tsunoda’s place at AlphaTauri, which historically waits three full years before giving up on a driver, while Zhou has impressed even while enduring rotten luck on reliability.

Latifi’s F1 future seems the most in peril, with Williams no longer needing to rely on the backing he brings in its Dorilton Capital age, and his lack of glittering results opposite Alex Albon. An extension at Haas seems most likely for Schumacher now that he has broken his points duck, but a final silly-season twist and the German heading elsewhere for 2023 cannot be ruled out.

Aston Martin tried out a new rear wing in Hungary which appeared to work around this year's new rules

Photo by: Uncredited

9. Further tech innovation testing F1’s new rules

Aston Martin shocked F1 with its Fernando Alonso signing the day after the Hungarian GP, but it had already caused a storm at that event. This was with its new rear wing, which featured vertical elements added after Aston’s engineers seemingly found a loophole in the rules regarding an apostrophe-shaped rolled over section. This appears to go against F1’s intention to reduce airflow disruption to following cars without the endplates from the previous era.

Aston downplayed its performance benefits, but it raised the potential of others working within the rules to put their results above F1’s aims of wanting closer racing – as is their raison d’etre.

So far, only Aston’s earlier move to switch to a car concept that closely mirrors what Red Bull had been running since testing – the green team insists it had been working on that approach since before its initial design was unveiled – and the flexi-floor tricks around porpoising have led to tech-based spats this year. But this could quickly spiral, which is why the FIA has moved to close the loophole alongside its work to get the 2026 rules signed off (which would end Red Bull’s wait to announce its Porsche tie-up).

The major performance differentiators with the current cars are generally hidden out of sight in floor performance, with one technical director recently indicating to Autosport that, of the various approaches deployed so far, there is no single ‘game-changer’ like the double diffuser of 2009. This also doesn’t include the different bodywork designs used across the grid, so raises the possibility that even if some upgrades are implemented against the spirit of the rules, the cars will at least continue to look different even within the expected usual degree of design convergence.

On-track action in F1 has appeared closer under the new rules

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

10. The complete analysis of F1’s new cars

Now that the 2022 season has passed halfway, we can make the initial stabs at analysing how successful F1’s new car rules have been. It’s clear that the drivers can race each other closer and for longer, with tyres no longer losing grip as quickly when sliding around in the dirty air of the car in front.

The top teams are still dominant. As expected, they have retained the knowledge and skills in the art of winning, albeit with some (Red Bull) having more of this than others (Ferrari)! So, attention will turn to closing the gap to the rest when it comes to fine-tuning the formula in future seasons.

Ross Brawn, in his farewell season as F1’s sporting boss, has already said that “the introduction of raceability [as a factor in car design] is going to be a significant change for F1 for the future”. So, with the final nine rounds set to take the championship back to the streets of Singapore, around the classic tracks and swanky modern autodromes – one of which, Austin, will surely test the AOM’s capability like nowhere else given its famous bumps – F1 will have a complete season’s data to analyse how the first design era under Liberty Media has begun. And, therefore, how it might alter over the coming years.

What will the second half of the 2022 F1 season hold?

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images