What the trackside view reveals about the early 2022 F1 pecking order

Subjectively, this new breed of ground-effect Formula 1 racer is a smash hit. For one, design diversity is well and truly back. Paint all the cars white, line them up side-by-side, and Ferrari’s concave sidepods are instantly distinct from the minimalist Mercedes and again from the Red Bull, which has seemingly had its savage inlets milled by a meat cleaver.

What’s more, this is a good-looking grid. The new front wings, which in photos can look ungainly for how high they sit in a bid to channel air to the floor, are far less objectionable out on track. The wheel covers don’t draw attention any more than a conventional alloy – it’s all an indecipherable rotating blur at these speeds.

Objectively, however, the class of 2022 has its foibles. At 795kg, these are the heaviest grand prix cars for nine decades. The jump to 18-inch wheels and more substantial safety structures has meant an increase of 43kg from the previous minimum weight limit alone. There’s no masking that bulk. The cars are cumbersome at slow speed and wallow when they bounce off kerbs. Already, Monaco isn’t being relished quite the same way as usual by drivers.

If the weight gain had an upside, it was anticipated that braking distances would increase, and that in turn would boost chances for overtaking. But that’s far from what Autosport clocks on the run to the first corner at the Bahrain International Circuit.

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Max Verstappen grabbed pole position here last season, and on his flying lap was stamping on the anchors into Turn 1 with around 115 metres to go. Now, aboard a hefty new Red Bull RB18 that may well have been carrying more than qualifying levels of fuel when he set the fastest time of testing, the reigning champion wasn’t hopping on the brakes until 100 metres. A comparison of the onboards from each lap proves that to be the case.

Mercedes W13 struggled badly with porpoising in Bahrain

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Mercedes missing the sweet spot 

Someone seemingly mislaid the TV remote on the opening morning of the second pre-season test in Bahrain. The massive trackside screen that stands in the shadow of the Sakhir Tower at Turn 3 was tuned into the wrong channel. Instead of showing the live feed, as it would do over the remaining two days, it was oddly playing stock footage of an aquarium.

Add that to the porpoising phenomenon that has returned to Formula 1 in tandem with ground-effect, due to the limitations of windtunnels and simulator software catching teams off guard, and there’s a marine theme in the early part of 2022.

The new size-zero Mercedes sidepods that broke cover at the Gulf venue only added to that. Where the narrow inlet seems to melt completely into the floor, which in turn ripples around the edges, the rear three-quarter angle of the W13 looks not unlike a cuttlefish. It’s indicative of the radical approach taken by the design team in Brackley, but it’s a car concept that is struggling to be unlocked.

While Mercedes has previous for playing down its credentials in pre-season testing, and the W13 wouldn’t be the first machine Toto Wolff might label a “diva”, it’s not necessarily all smoke and mirrors this time

It still appears as though the Silver Arrow is vying with Alpine and Ferrari to be worst affected by porpoising. Although there’s a deceptive bump 250 metres out from Turn 1 that upsets all cars, it’s clear that the Mercedes is still jumping up and down either side of that interference. The leading school of thought is that the W13 is producing almost too much downforce, pushing the floor closer to the ground to initiate the stalling. As the air repeatedly attaches and detaches itself, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell nauseatingly bob up and down ad nauseam.

This appears to be creating trouble away from the straights, too. One solution for the porpoising is to almost weld the car in place by stiffening the suspension as far as possible. But this comes to a head at Turn 10, the downhill cambered left-hander. With no give in the set-up, as the inside wheel goes light under braking, Hamilton is constantly locking up and understeering. Time and time again he misses the apex and is often abandoning the asphalt altogether to take to the runoff.

What’s more, the complex floors and ultra-taut configuration mean the drivers appear reluctant to run over the kerbs at the risk of damaging the underfloor aero.

While Mercedes has previous for playing down its credentials in pre-season testing, and the W13 wouldn’t be the first machine Toto Wolff might label a “diva”, it’s not necessarily all smoke and mirrors this time. This Three-Pointed Star looks to enjoy only a narrow operating window and, initially at least, Mercedes would seem to be struggling to find it, never mind open it.

Perez went fastest on the final morning before Verstappen's headline-grabbing run on Saturday evening

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Red Bull wins testing ‘world championship’

Red Bull has come away as the effective winner of testing. Chiefly that’s the work of Max Verstappen. The reigning champion guided his RB18, shod with the fastest C5 tyres, to an unrivalled 1m31.720s effort with a little under 10 minutes to go on the final day in Bahrain.

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Behind what’s thought to be a low-fuel run for second-fastest Mick Schumacher in the Haas, a seven-tenth advantage over Charles Leclerc could be, in part, explained by the Ferrari running the harder C4 Pirellis. You could also suppose that the Red Bull was light on fuel and had its Honda engine turned up to the max to grab the late headlines with a glory run. But the view from behind the barriers backs up the potency of the Milton Keynes creation.

It is not hyperbole with the gift of hindsight to say that the Red Bull had a habit of tricking the eye. On several occasions, it looked as though Verstappen was set to spin – not actually including when he did lose the car exiting the final corner in the build-up to his late flying laps.

Even though this breed of machinery has jumped in weight, the RB18 appeared to be so responsive to the driver’s inputs. It was lithe and showed almost no propensity for washing wide. But it was the rear axle creating the deception. The back end of the car turns so violently that it looks as though it’s ready to swap ends and overtake the front. It never does, of course, but epitomises a car that possesses an unrivalled ‘wow factor’ at this stage of development.

Red Bull seems to have knocked its porpoising problems on the head too. Despite the shift to ground-effect dictating that a car runs as close and flat to the ground as possible, the team appears to have reverted to a previous-gen habit by introducing a touch of rake. That stops the stalling that is blighting its rivals, but doesn’t seem to have come at a cost to downforce.

Ferrari appears to be firmly in contention

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Ferrari set to be in the mix

It’s because the Red Bull looks so utterly convincing, somewhat irrespective of how it would fare on the timing screens, that the shine has been ever so slightly taken off an otherwise stellar showing from Ferrari. In isolation the red machine looks unwaveringly well behaved in the hands of Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr. But it lacks the panache of the Red Bull.

Throughout our repeat ventures around the circuit – albeit with the majority spent on both the inside and outside of Turn 10 as it proved the greatest differentiator – over the three days in Bahrain, there’s no instance of the F1-75 ever really getting it wrong.

It’s in the unwelcome company of Mercedes and Alpine for badly bumping its way down the straights – an issue it hadn’t resolved from Barcelona. It shows the F1-75 and its bathtub-like sidepods aren’t infallible

Apexes at Turns 1 and the higher-speed T8 are missed sporadically by a foot or so. But it’s nothing like the Mercedes and AlphaTauri habit of repeated locking or the Aston Martin’s tendency to understeer. Even so, this being so fleet of foot could be reflective of Ferrari sticking to Maranello convention and running comparatively light fuel loads in testing.

For the second runout of this new breed of cars in Bahrain, the Ferrari sprouted a new carbon rod. It extends from the base of the engine cover to connect to the floor. Mercedes and Alfa Romeo ran something similar from day one in Sakhir, while AlphaTauri adopted a strut of its own 24 hours later. The hope is to tack on some extra stiffness to the floor, meaning it’s less likely to deflect, stall and bring about porpoising.

Ultimately, this hasn’t worked for Ferrari. It’s in the unwelcome company of Mercedes and Alpine for badly bumping its way down the straights – an issue it hadn’t resolved from Barcelona. It shows the F1-75 and its bathtub-like sidepods aren’t infallible, despite the camp billing this as the smoothest pre-season test for the team in years.

McLaren's MCL36 appears compliant but was plagued by brake problems in testing

Photo by: Motorsport Images

The battle behind

Formula 1 looks set for an ultra-congested midfield in which the competitive order seems poised to evolve on an almost session-by-session basis. But even within that cut and thrust, there are a couple of defining features.

McLaren seems a step ahead with its compliant MCL36. This team looks ready to pick up the pieces should any of the big three have a down day. But following Daniel Ricciardo’s positive COVID-19 test and heavily limited mileage in Bahrain after the team sported the wrong brake components for the hotter temperatures, it’s no longer breathing down their necks in quite the same way.

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The Aston Martin AMR22 serves as a caricature for the increase in the minimum weight limit. It looks lethargic at low speed, almost as though it was always filled to the brim. Sebastian Vettel notably had to agitate the front axle to get it to answer to him. His hands would dart above the dashboard as he aggressively turned in but, even then, it was hit or miss whether he would clip the apex.

Alfa Romeo’s carbon rods appear to have conquered the porpoising that is believed to have worn a hole through the floor when the C42 was first run for its filming day. It now looks unflappable in a straight line, while running the shortest wheelbase gives it an energy through changes of direction.

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And then there’s the real head-scratcher: Alpine. Fernando Alonso is not known to mince his words (see “GP2 engine”), and in public he’s content with the car. That’s backed up by his run to fourth in the times on the final day. Some suggest the A522 is decent but unlikely to set the world alight.

It’s far from a doomsday scenario, but the Alpine is also the least-convincing car from the side of the road. Porpoising remains a major headache for the drivers being hurled around in the cockpit, and for the engineers who have so far not resolved the listing motion.

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It’s better when the going gets more twisty but not inspiring. Locking up, aborted corners, mixed apexes – the full set list. Whether painted blue or pink, the Alpine appears unconvincing at a time when Haas, Williams and AlphaTauri might be there to pounce.

Fernando Alonso ended the test third-fastest, but his Alpine has often looked unconvincing

Photo by: Alpine