The overlooked flaws of the 2022 F1 cars that Baku will expose

The radical return to ground-effect was given the green light because it had the end goal of boosting overtaking. As such, it’s been the ability of the new Formula 1 cars to follow one another more closely that, dynamically at least, has been front and centre during the first third of the 2022 campaign. But the other clear by-product of the technical overhaul has been weight gain. And the lamentable consequences of that appear to have got off pretty lightly so far.

It should have been the case that on the first lap of the Monaco Grand Prix, the heaviest-ever breed of F1 racers copped the most amount of flak. With many teams still not at the minimum weight limit (Helmut Marko reckons Red Bull is 5kg over), they are tipping the scales at a minimum of 798kg including the driver. That’s only the dry weight. Add a full tank of fuel for a race start and it’s more like 900kg. Blimey.

Sebastian Vettel joked earlier in the year that a lap around the principality may as well have been undertaken on a bus given the heft of the new cars. Therefore, navigating the slowest, tightest corner on the calendar - the Loews/Grand Hotel/Fairmont hairpin - should have been when the cars were brutally exposed and looked at their most cumbersome.

Instead, after the delayed race start, the wet conditions stole the show to spare the blushes of the bloated machinery that largely escaped without mockery. With that in mind, it was the fiddly Turns 14-15 chicane of the inaugural Miami GP weekend that has so far proved the least flattering. Cars bounced off the high inside sausage kerbs and appeared ponderous as they took time to settle, even if that did force drivers into several corrections to spice up the spectacle.

With Monaco not providing the peak of the derision, it was left to two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden to reveal how lethargic the new F1 cars are. Last week, as Newgarden powered to pole around the tight streets of Detroit's Belle Isle track, he was having to hurriedly apply the opposite lock to keep a skittish rear end in check as the non-power-assisted steering wheel squirmed in his hands.

Granted, a key ingredient that made the footage so visceral came from the bumpy track surface. The video looked shaky and raw as the savage expansion joints deflected a Team Penske car that is still no single-seater featherweight at 740kg. But the point still stands that Newgarden’s car looked comparatively lithe, unsettled and therefore the more exciting.

Footage of Newgarden's Belle Isle pole lap made the IndyCar appear much more lively than a modern F1 machine

Photo by: Phillip Abbott / Motorsport Images

After rewatching the Newgarden lap again and again, the YouTube algorithm whirred into life and suggested two other clips for viewing pleasure. One was a post-2000 comparison of F1 cars through the second part of the Monaco swimming pool. The other was of Fernando Alonso demonstrating his 2005 title-winning Renault R25 in Abu Dhabi in 2020. Both reaffirmed how much energy F1 cars have lost through changes of direction.

A lot of that comes from the weight gain, since near enough 175kg has been added to the dry weight since the turn of the millennium to dull the reactions of the cars. But a perhaps overlooked contributing factor is how much the dimensions have rocketed up.

Over the past 22 years, the wheelbase has increased by 600 millimetres up to a maximum of 3600mm (although the Mercedes W10 of 2020 peaked at 3726mm between axles). That’s a bigger jump than going from a Ford Focus to a Bentley Mulsanne.

The Azerbaijan GP this weekend won’t disguise the heft very well. The Baku layout is peppered with 90-degree corners rather than the fast, open sweeps that best show off the high-speed credentials of these ground-effect machines

Particularly where weight is concerned, it again raises questions of the logic behind the technical shake-up that came in for 2017. The brief was to create the fastest-ever F1 cars, regardless of the negative impact the extra dirty air would have on the racing. The revised rules led to wider front and rear wings, wider cars and bigger tyres. All added to the weight and size. And while the hybrid powertrain did contribute to a 48kg leap between 2013 and 2014, for the first year of the narrow 1.6-litre turbo cars, they were still only 690kg dry.

The Azerbaijan GP this weekend won’t disguise the heft very well. The Baku layout is peppered with 90-degree corners rather than the fast, open sweeps that best show off the high-speed credentials of these ground-effect machines. A dry run through the immensely narrow castle section has the potential to expose the worst traits of the 2022 cars in a way that a damp Monaco never really did.

Of course, the new generation has only just arrived. For now, it’s best to make peace with the weight gain and subsequent laziness through the corners - it’s here to stay for the time being.

It’s likely we will all focus on the overpowered DRS effect through the final sector at Baku, which will surely give way to plentiful changes of position and in turn be chalked up as a further success for the second ground-effect F1 era. But it shouldn’t be forgotten that the greatest shortcomings of the new rules will also be on display around the rest of the lap.

The greatest shortcomings of the 2022 F1 machines are likely to be revealed through Baku's twisty castle section

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images