The strengths and weakness of the F1 field halfway through 2022 - and what's next

If you can believe it, the 2022 Formula 1 season is already halfway through its allotted run-time. In its yearly global criss-crossing, F1 has had the opening salvo of rounds in the Middle East, Australia, Europe, and North America, and will continue its European leg either side of the August summer break prior to races in Asia, South America and a return close to where the season began for the Abu Dhabi curtain fall.

Around the mammoth task of working out upgrade timings with F1’s worldwide logistics, the teams have had to get their teeth into the problems raised by the return to ground effects. It’s been an already gargantuan effort to dial out the early problems with porpoising and, now that most teams have seen the back of the vertical shaking, they can focus their undivided attention on coaxing performance out of the car.

Of course, each and every car on the 2022 grid has its own strengths and weaknesses. And with 11 races remaining, there’s plenty of time to fix those weaknesses before turning attention to next year’s car – assuming that cost cap limits haven’t been transgressed at this stage. Of course, there might be one or two teams who would be better off diverting focus to next season, but they still need to develop an understanding of this year’s car to understand where to go in 2023.

Red Bull – medium-low speed cornering performance and weight

Verstappen says the RB18 is still too heavy, which has compromised Red Bull in low-fuel situations such as qualifying

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

Under the 2009 aerodynamic ruleset, Red Bull notably sacrificed straight-line speed for performance in all varieties of corner, which yielded dividends before the turbo-hybrid era. Within the scope of the 2022 rules, it seems to be a slightly different approach from the Milton Keynes squad; the car chews up the miles at full throttle, and seems to have a barnacle-like grip on the high-speed corners.

This is particularly potent in the races, where the high-fuel loads negate the RB18’s largest disadvantage: weight. To illustrate that point, take the Azerbaijan Grand Prix; Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez were able to out-sprint the Ferraris on the flat-out stretch on Neftchilar Avenue in qualifying, but Charles Leclerc had the two beaten in the fight for pole owing to Ferrari’s greater potency in the corners.

Even before the Ferraris either ground to a halt or spontaneously combusted, Red Bull had the upper hand in the race and Verstappen was closing after Leclerc's well-timed FCY stop before the Monegasque came to a fiery stop.

PLUS: Would Leclerc have won in Baku had his Ferrari survived?

Miami proved to be another example of Red Bull’s strengths against Ferrari; Leclerc was closing Verstappen down in the corners but, even with DRS assistance, the Red Bull could simply stride away to safety and preserve the lead. But Verstappen has been largely outgunned in qualifying, which he puts down to the car needing to go on a diet.

“We are still a bit heavy,” the reigning champion confessed in Austria. “So, of course, when all the fuel comes out, that is just a limitation we have, so we still need to lose weight with the car, which we're working on.

“But that's why, I guess in the race, it's a little bit less of an issue because first of all, you cannot push like in qualifying. So probably that helps a bit with the way we have the car. And that weight issue with a full tank is a little bit less visible.”

Ferrari – power unit reliability

Sainz's DNF in Austria was the latest in a run of reliability problems that have hampered Ferrari in 2022

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The charred remains of Carlos Sainz’s Ferrari F1-75 in Austria was another demonstration of the reliability issues that have pervaded Ferrari’s season. Leclerc, as mentioned above, suffered a similar fate in Azerbaijan, while turbo failure cancelled out a near-certain win at the Spanish Grand Prix to leave the Monegasque trailing in the championship. Sainz, too, retired with a hydraulics problem in Baku.

It feeds the narrative that Ferrari’s biggest problem in 2022 is itself. Had reliability been bulletproof and strategic calls more proactive, Leclerc would be leading the title race. Instead, he’s 38 points off Verstappen.

PLUS: How Ferrari’s Monaco headache became its Silverstone migraine

The upside is that there’s still time to reverse the arrears and bring Leclerc – and Sainz – back into play. Soul-searching in the engine department at Maranello should offer fixes, and Ferrari was tactically superior to the Red Bull squad in Austria – albeit helped by the RB18’s greater tendency to eat through its Pirelli rubber. In preparation for a more evenly fought race, Ferrari’s tacticians perhaps need to dust off its sparsely used copy of Sun Tzu’s Art of War, and start manoeuvring Red Bull into where it needs to be – rather than vice versa.

There’s probably also scope to find a little bit more pace in a straight line, and Ferrari has been actively trimming its wings down to get more top speed, but it’s not the be-all and end-all.

Mercedes – continue finding performance from the floor

Now that Mercedes has largely understood its porpoising struggles, it can work to extract more performance from its W13 car

Photo by: Alessio Morgese

Out of the teams afflicted by vertical oscillations, Mercedes had it worst. The W13 was way too eager to start bouncing on the straights and leave both Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in considerable pain after races. But the team seems to have turned the corner.

As Mercedes focused its resources on trying to dial out unwanted movements from the car, performance updates had to take a back seat. So, it has ground to make up in the windtunnel. Thankfully for the team, dropping a few places in the constructors’ championship has given it a little bit more aerodynamic testing time relative to Red Bull and Ferrari, offering the Silver Arrows a chance to catch up.

What the W13 does have on its side is reliability. Hamilton is one of two drivers to finish every race in 2022 – the other being Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll – while Russell’s sole retirement at Silverstone was after getting wiped out in the scary first-corner crash involving Zhou Guanyu.

It’s meant that, even with a performance shortfall relative to the top teams, Mercedes has been able to collect points metronomically. Every single one of Russell’s race finishes has been in the range of third to fifth, demonstrating unbelievable consistency.

Hamilton, meanwhile, found the W13 far more challenging to get on top of – but he’s collected a trio of third places in a row. And if the performance updates continue and prove Ronseal-y enough to do what it says on the tin, a win is certainly possible.

McLaren – make the most of the little updates

McLaren has suggested it won't be making further major developments, but needs to help Ricciardo get back on form

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Owing to the cost cap, McLaren has already signalled that it won’t be adding any more major updates to its MCL36. That’s probably going to be the case for a lot of teams, but for McLaren, it adds more jeopardy given the close battle it faces with Alpine for fourth in the teams’ standings.

The MCL36 itself is a real curate’s egg. It’s not got any glaring weaknesses, but it’s also not got any obvious strengths relative to its competitors. On a good day, it gives Lando Norris a car that he can fight for strong points with but, on a day where the car is struggling, the McLarens are glued to the midfield. Austria proved to be a valiant rescue mission for the team after losing almost all of FP1 with separate issues on both cars but, equally, it calls into question what McLaren could have achieved if it had been able to make use of the track time.

“Every run we’ve done, we’ve realised how compromised we’ve been,” Norris said after the race. “We’ve always been two steps behind just because of how many problems we’ve had, in FP1 not getting to know the porpoising levels and the correct wing levels and things like that. I think if we could restart the weekend, I think we would be a lot stronger and I think we could fight the Alpines. And I think I can be quite confident in that.”

Considering where McLaren started the season, and the brake issues that neutered the car in the Bahrain season opener, it’s been a good turnaround in form. But Norris’ “two steps behind” claim can equally be applied for the whole season. It still needs to find straightline performance, where the cars are well among the midfield runners, and perhaps further tweaks to draw more performance out of the floor to give the drivers more confidence with the downforce levels.

But perhaps the key issue is the declining form of Daniel Ricciardo. The Australian has managed just 17 points in 2022, 47 adrift of Norris in the other car, and McLaren needs to find a way to get the amiable Australian back to his boisterous best – particularly as Alpine’s drivers remain evenly matched.

Alpine – Continue search for consistency and avoid black cats

Alpine needs a more consistent baseline if it is to beat McLaren to fourth in the constructors' standings

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

There’s a good chance Alpine would already be ahead of McLaren in the constructors’ standings, had it not endured some suspect luck this season – particularly on Fernando Alonso’s side of the garage. The two-time champion endured a miserable run of form after the Bahrain opener with reliability issues, first-lap contact and time penalties all keeping him out of the points in four successive races.

Alonso has since finished in the top 10 in the last six grands prix, but the Spanish racer still endured misfortune in Austria after failing to fire up for the sprint race. A hearty revival in the full Red Bull Ring race could have yielded more than a solitary point had it not been for wheel vibrations.

Ocon, as is customary in modern F1, has been a paragon of consistency – while Alpine itself has not been shy with its upgrades as it hopes to surpass McLaren and reel in Mercedes for a more favourable constructors’ championship position.

PLUS: Austrian Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2022

The Renault power unit is also much improved this year, and when needed, can ladle out an impressive level of grunt. The team’s strategy to use that to its advantage in Baku and maximise its straightline speed worked to a degree, but Alonso questioned whether taking such an extreme path to the Azerbaijan race was in the team’s best interests.

The A522 is a good all-rounder, but as Mercedes begins to improve, Alpine might not necessarily have enough in reserve to usurp its German rival. Still, continuing to bring updates to deliver a more consistent baseline is definitely on the agenda.

Alfa Romeo – get reliability sorted

Improved reliability will give Bottas and Zhou a better chance of regular points finishes

Photo by: Xavi Bonilla / DPPI

It’s been a good season so far for the Sauber-run squad. Former Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas has delivered his usual brand of consistency and pace to help haul the team up from the back of the field to regular points contenders. Rookie Zhou Guanyu is finding his feet in F1 too, and has offered a stern challenge to Bottas – a man who could often outqualify Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes – on Saturdays.

The team hasn’t always got its set-ups right on the C42, particularly in Austria, but Bottas was on the brink of recovering a point from a back-row start before Alonso caught him towards the end of the race. Zhou, too, was hamstrung in Austria as a legacy of his frightening crash at Silverstone – and once in a DRS train, it’s very hard to get out of and make forward momentum. A lack of straightline speed makes that task even tougher.

But the biggest issue Alfa faces is in its reliability. Both Bottas and Zhou have been frequent visitors to the pits mid-race to retire and, although the issues have improved as the season has gone on, it means that Alfa is probably not as close in the points standings to McLaren and Alpine as it could be. The clutch issues that plagued starts in the opening races have been largely dialled out, and it could well be that its problems are linked to the issues Ferrari has faced this year.

As for the externals of the car, things seem to be in good shape; the C42 is quick, and the car was already well below the weight limit before 3kg was tacked on later on. This gives the engineers much more freedom with ballast.

Haas – anything, really

Haas has yet to bring any updates, but the team is performing well and will be eager to make sure any new parts don't destabilise Schumacher's new-found confidence

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

Though it occupies seventh in the constructors’ championship, Haas hasn’t actually updated its 2022 car at all. Perhaps still burned by the issues it faced in 2019, where every passing update actually made the VF-19 worse, the American squad has been focusing on getting the most out of the VF-22 in standard trim before bringing a host of new parts in Hungary.

This year’s Haas is a night-and-day step over the old car, but that’s only to be expected when you consider last year’s machinery was a 2020-spec car with an updated floor. Kevin Magnussen’s return to the team has added a palpable injection of confidence among the ranks, and Mick Schumacher is finally finding some form at the wheel.

PLUS: What next for the Haas F1 revival story?

Haas seems to be taking a careful approach to this season, and making sure it fully understands the nuances of the car before making steps to improve it. Perhaps aero balance would be a key point of improvement given Schumacher’s struggles with an unpredictable car but, in recent rounds, he seems to have found a happy medium.

“I always said we are not in a hurry just to put an upgrade to say we put an upgrade,” Steiner said at Silverstone. “It's not a propaganda. I mean, we sometimes do things a bit different, but not to be different, because we believe in our way to do them."

That the design team now relies on a special “hub” based at Maranello now means that Haas should avoid the upgrade pitfalls that befell it previously.

AlphaTauri – regain momentum with French GP updates

AlphaTauri is looking to reset after a difficult run of recent rounds where it has struggled

Photo by: Peter Fox

“At the end of the day we just have no pace,” Pierre Gasly lamented after Austria. “You can do whatever you want, any strategy you want, but with the speed we have at the moment, it's just we can't keep going like this. So we need to reset. We should have some new parts coming, and hopefully they come for France and we can show a better pace there.

“It's no surprise if you don't have new parts and the others are improving. You see at the start of the year, we're fighting with the guys at the front. Now we're finishing 20-30 seconds behind. We're losing four or five tenths per lap, and that's what we need to find.”

One of the teams largely unafflicted by porpoising, AlphaTauri has introduced a few changes to the floor earlier in the season – but it has simply fallen behind many of its rival teams, and shipped a further position in the constructors’ championship to Haas. There isn’t a specific issue that AlphaTauri needs to work on, and the car seems relatively benign in the handling department – it's just not particularly quick at the moment. And that can snowball if the team does not arrest the slide.

PLUS: Inside the Faenza facility where AlphaTauri’s F1 pragmatic vision is realised

Relative to Haas, the team does not seem to be discovering quite as much about the AT03 in a relatively standard state – so its hopes are pinned on the planned updates for France. Straightline speed is very good and the blue-and-white cars are regularly among the upper echelons of the speed trap in race trim. It’s just missing out in the other departments.

Aston Martin – pause updates to understand latest packages

Aston Martin needs to understand its latest upgrades, which haven't offered a clear improvement as yet

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images

The Silverstone squad has introduced two hefty upgrade packages in 2022 to lift its fortunes after a tough start to life with its AMR22. New bodywork arrived in Barcelona, while the team added a revised floor and a new beam wing for the British Grand Prix to try to find more pace.

PLUS: Why there was no case to answer in Aston’s latest F1 copycat saga

But although the upgrades have promised much, it’s hard to say if they’ve truly delivered. Stroll and Sebastian Vettel have managed points in the races following the Spanish Grand Prix, sure, but the car doesn’t seem to offer the consistency needed to get both drivers into the top 10 simultaneously. Stroll, in particular, is struggling with balance and it seems that Aston isn’t getting the most out of the underbody at this stage in time.

As it mulls over further updates given the effect of the cost cap, what the team probably needs is a clean weekend to assess the developments it has already made and build some momentum for the second half of the year. That’ll help too in developing for 2023, as it firmly needs to understand why it hasn’t enjoyed as much success compared to previous years.

Williams – understand new updates, find more downforce

Albon believes the revamped Williams is 'peakier', but faster overall

Photo by: Williams F1

Like Aston Martin, Williams decided to change tack with its bodywork concept and prepared a new set of clothes for the FW44 in Silverstone. Plans to get both cars fitted with the new parts for Austria were paused after Alex Albon’s crash at the start of the British GP, but initial signs suggest that the overall boost in performance means that Williams should have Nicholas Latifi kitted out in due course.

It now has a full race distance with the new updates, and very nearly helped Albon work his way into the points at the Red Bull Ring, but Williams will hope that its work on getting to grips with the new parts will yield more traction and performance – particularly as the car doesn’t seem to be as balanced in the lower-speed circuits.

“We do have good straightline speed which also helps us, but I do think the aero package is bringing something,” Albon said after qualifying 12th in Austria.

“If you look at it right now, it is almost a completely different car to what we have had before. It gives us a lot of scope to improve as well. It is a good base to keep developing. We have got this early stage of this characteristic of a new car and now we are here to explore it. To get on top of it as quickly as we have done, I only see it getting better towards the rest of the season.”

“It is a bit more peaky in that sense, but when you get on top of it, it is good. There is a bit of a learning curve to it and obviously we don’t want it to always be peaky and tricky. But with the limited amount of running we have done that is so far the general feeling.”

Could the latest Williams changes help Latifi to rise up the grid?

Photo by: Drew Gibson / Motorsport Images