Fernando Alonso, Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz, George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. /
world
The 2022 season opens the door to new regulations whose sole objective is a major challenge: that the races are more even and there is more fighting
Taken to the absurd and reduced to its maximum expression, Formula 1 is nothing more than a group of cars going around the same circuit in which the first one is the one that completes the race distance in the shortest possible time. On paper, the 20 components of the grid start with options, but the reality is radically different: only two or three are firm candidates for victory. As the technological development of the cars has advanced, the possibility of seeing more drivers fighting for success has diminished, to the point that the DRS system had to be invented years ago to enable overtaking.
The entrance of Liberty Media in the property of the competition was clear from the beginning that this had to change. The risk of losing the bulk of its fans because the races were boring and the old charisma of the tests had been lost became evident with a worrying loss of viewers, so among other decisions (such as partnering with Netflix to discover the competition through a population that did not know it), they were studying a new technical regulation that would enhance the great circus. It is no longer vital that the Formula 1 cars are fast, but that they can compete with each other. Then began a long development process that was to start in 2021 and that, due to the outbreak of the pandemic, was delayed for a whole year.
Few expected that just in the last campaign of the regulations in which Mercedes had destroyed the patience of the fans with an iron dominance as few remember, the best season of the last decades was going to be lived. Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton staged a merciless fight that culminated in the last lap of the last grand prix, after arriving level on points. Not even in the best of scripts would such a resolution have been dreamed of.
Those ingredients have been thrown into a shaker so that the new era of Formula 1 arrives at a critical time for this sport to enter absolute modernity. The new single-seaters, as seen in the pre-season tests, have given the engineers free rein to solve what the aerodynamics took away: now you will be able to see wheel-to-wheel fights (18 inches and not 13 as before) and presumably more show. Each of the 23 races (in the absence of confirming which one will replace Russia, because the war has also touched here) will be a dogfight between the candidate Hamilton and the champion Verstappen. It still feels weird to write.
Hamilton, who during these months was fooling around with the withdrawal after what he experienced in Abu Dhabi, part injured in a campaign in which Mercedes is going to throw all the meat on the grill. After taking out Michael Masi as race director, the German squad will try to reclaim the throne for their fallen king. For this they have created a bold W13 that, if it meets the expectations that its rivals fear most, will devastate. In front, however, they will have a Max Verstappen who will wear the number 1 on his car. Red Bull knows how to manage the role of the reigning team and they demonstrated years ago that they have an unparalleled technical capacity to adapt to regulatory changes, so now in the maturity of their leader they will try to confirm the change in cycle that began a year before .
surprise guests
In this sense, the entry into force of the new regulations may give rise to surprise guests or even candidates who were not expected a priori. And it is that in the preseason it has been shown that Ferrari is there. The Scuderia has been immersed in a restructuring process almost from its roots for years, and both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc start as serious candidates to give the scare. The belligerence between Red Bull and Mercedes benefited those from Maranello, who dedicated a good part of their time to developing the F1-75, which is now scary.
And ‘The Plan’? Alpine arrives with fewer options than it seemed. Fernando Alonso will be the oldest driver on the 2022 grid and will become the driver who has contested the most Grand Prix in the history of the competition in the fall, but expectations are not too encouraging. The feeling that the A522 (which will start the year with a colorful pink decoration, paid for by the new main sponsor) is not as good as expected has been evident in a preseason with doubts and more breakdowns than desired. Let no one be mistaken: ruling Alonso out of the fight would be too risky and the development capacity that these single-seaters allow should give them wings. Or so the plan says.
