Fernando Alonso, Alpine, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022

Five early pointers on F1’s radical new cars from the first day of testing

2022 F1 season

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Formula 1’s new regulations for 2022 were years in the making – indeed, a year more than originally envisaged, as their introduction was delayed after the Covid-19 outbreak.

The long wait to see the first cars built to F1’s radically overhauled rules set finally ended today. And while it’s far too early to draw conclusions about who’s quick and who isn’t, we’ve already gleaned the first details about F1’s bold new era.

Same problem, different solutions

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022
Ferrari has produced one of the most novel designs
F1 designers agree the new technical rules limit their scope for development. However the rules still mark such a departure from what went before that the teams have pursued several noticeably different solutions.

Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull have all produced remarkably different interpretations of the regulations around sidepod dimensions. Cooling arrangements vary. Front and rear wings in varying degrees of sophistication have appeared. Some teams have departed from the norm by adopting pull-rod suspension at the front of their cars.

It remains to be seen how quickly teams will converge on similar solutions. But for now the sight of so many visually distinct grand prix cars is a welcome change.

Early performance predictions were way off

When F1 first announced its planned changes there were some doom-and-gloom predictions about what it would mean for the performance of the cars. One team principal said initial projections showed they would be little quicker than their Formula 2 counterparts.

However during last year teams increasingly indicated the new cars would end up being close in performance to the ones they are replacing. The first lap times from today’s test bear that out.

Lando Norris ended the day quickest with a best time of 1’19.568. Had he produced that in qualifying for last year’s Spanish Grand Prix he would have lined up 19th on the grid.

Considering the track temperatures are far cooler in February than in May, and the 2022 cars are at the very beginning of the development curve, it’s not hard to imagine teams will quickly find the 2.8 seconds between today’s benchmark time and last year’s pole.

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Slow is slower, quick is quicker

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022
The cars’ extra weight hits them in the slow corners
The manner in which the new cars generate their lap times is quite different to before, though in line with what was expected of them. The enlarged underfloor tunnels appear to be an effective replacement for the downforce lost by the move to simpler wings and removal of bargeboards. Cars are whipping through the quicker corners much as they did before, potentially even quicker.

In the slow corners, however, they are more ponderous. Norris in particular drew attention to the effect of the increased weight – a 40kg hike to 795kg – in this year’s cars.

The jury is still out on overtaking

Most of the changes to this year’s cars were made with the goal of improving the quality of racing in Formula 1. In short, making it easier to overtake.

Nicholas Latifi, Williams, Circuit de Catalunya, 2022
It’s not yet clear whether passing will be any easier
Whether that has succeeded or not is too early to say. Teams go testing to improve the performance of their cars, not necessarily to research how quickly they can follow others.

That said, there were occasions on Wednesday when it appeared some drivers were seizing the opportunity to discover whether their new machines are affected by turbulence as heavily as their previous cars. Carlos Sainz Jnr spent several laps tailing Max Verstappen, drawing close to the Red Bull on occasions.

Whether or not the long-lamented problem of turbulence has been eased, one other consequence of the new rules may prove helpful. As these heavier cars with their simplified suspension are not as quick through the slower corners, braking distances have become longer, as several drivers observed. This could give drivers a greater opportunity to pull off a pass.

Let’s see if the remaining two days of this test yield more opportunities for drivers to find out.

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This is not a test

Max Verstappen, Red Bull, Silverstone, 2022
Red Bull did their shakedown at Silverstone
F1 branded the opening three-day test of the season as a ‘shakedown’ event and is calling the upcoming three days of running in Bahrain the genuine start of testing. This odd exercise in semantics was seemingly intended to confer extra prestige on the final test, which is also the only one which will be televised. But make no mistake: As far as the FIA rule book is confirmed, F1’s first three days in Spain is every bit as much as test as the next three in Bahrain are.

Nonetheless, would F1 teams actually treat the three days in Spain as a ‘shakedown’? Would the largely new cars prove significantly less reliable than their predecessors and limit their running?

The answer turned out to be ‘no’ on both counts. Ferrari led the way on mileage, logging an impressive 715 kilometres. Red Bull and Williams joined them in covering the equivalent of more than two race distances, and Mercedes and Alpine came close.

Even the likes of Haas and Alfa Romeo, who were delayed by various problems, covered more than the 100 kilometre limit set for filming days, of the type teams had already use for true ‘shakedowns’ before Wednesday’s test.

The first day of testing is over, and five more remain, after which we may have learned a lot more about F1’s exciting new era.

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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27 comments on “Five early pointers on F1’s radical new cars from the first day of testing”

  1. The slow corners look horrible. A lot of understeer was reported by Palmer. Looks like street circuits have been done dirty with these cars.

    1. @krichelle the article should perhaps also point out that, although Norris did set a lap time in the mid 1m19s bracket, there is the caveat that he used a softer tyre compound to do it than would be available at the Spanish GP.

      1. @anon but the softer compound is available due to the colder weather at this time of year

    2. In the medium corners Alonso and others were consistently suffering oversteer, while Max especially was locking up. Mercedes and Ferrari have been the best in low and med speed corners, which has got me grinning ear to ear waiting for 44’s revenge tour and the return of Ferrari to the top.

      1. I wouldn’t worry about Ferrari, after masi stopped the fix last year they’ll be working overtime to make sure nobody is allowed to challenge hamilton

    3. How does that make it look horrible? It’s awesome. If slower corners are slower – the braking distances are longer, and there is more acceleration. Both contribute to more overtaking and close battles.
      The instability of the cars makes it look much better as well! Cars or rails is what is boring.

  2. The primary issue with the way the cars are producing lap time is that they will look particularly slow on TV. This has been a problem for a while now, highlighted by how ‘quick and nimble’ Alonso’s run in the ’05 Renault looked at the end of 2020 compared to the cars of today.

    It’s hard to perceive high speed performance whereas a nimble car in the slow corners will always look fast (hence why kart’s looked unbelievably quick on TV).

    Hopefully there are avenues to begin a reduction in car size and weight in the coming years as it is a problem everyone seems aware of.

    1. Coventry Climax
      24th February 2022, 1:51

      The FIA may be aware of it, but that’s not the same as coming up with useful steps to adress the issue. Given the FIA’s track record, it’s more likely they’ll invent some other problem to solve first. And even if they adress this weight issue, the solution will probably turn out to be that the cars get even more heavy.

    2. Good point, but this can be solved with camera angles.

      Whether they will change the camera angles is a different question.

    3. They can mitigate that by allowing for a return to more advanced suspension systems in future seasons if needed. I imagine after the first couple of races that the teams will have found a way to dial them in to not be so ponderous in low speed corners. The hope for 2025/2026 would be to mandate shorter cars with the arrival of the new power units. A shorter car is a lighter car.

      That said I have always preferred the narrower 1.8 meter cars we had from 1998 to 2016. They were a lot smaller and much more nimble. They were twitchy and hard to drive in a way the post 2017 cars have not been. Especially the 2005-2005 era cars; nearly as fast as the turbo-hybrid era cars of the last few seasons, but they looked way faster. Race lap records like Barrichello’s from Monza in 2004 are evidence that in some instances they are still the fastest of all time.

      The 2022 cars are a massive step in the right direction, the return to ground effect after all was originally floated for the 2014 regs before it was shot down, but it doesn’t mean there still isn’t a lot of work to do. I’d love to see the F1 cars of 2026 utilizing the ground effect and style of today while weighing a hundred or two hundred kilos less.

      1. “That said I have always preferred the narrower 1.8 meter cars we had from 1998 to 2016. They were a lot smaller and much more nimble. ”
        – But those silly little ugly cars looking like larger F3 cars were much less nimble than the 220cm wide cars we had until 1993.
        Just look at those amazing clips from 1990 – short and 20cm wider cars than those we have today:
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbtdMeJeMO8
        They were more spectacular in the pit-stops than any cars afterwards were on track!
        That Ferrari acceleration in 0:13 is mind melting! And those beasts look like proper F1 cars, not F3 cars.

      2. The minimum weight requirements is the main thing dictating how heavy the cars are – it doesn’t matter if the car is shorter or longer if the minimum weight requirements are the limiting factor on weight.

    4. I’m more leaning towards higher downforce cars look slow.

      1. And the longer a car is, the slower it will look on TV

  3. Nice to start seeing the cars being driven in anger, and I’m quite pleased that most seemed to be able to have trouble free first days.

    In terms of weight there are so few areas that they can look to save weight without either compromising safety or removing any “electric” solutions from the PU’s.

    If they reduce the fuel allowance from 100kg to 50 that would only increase the weight of batteries required to make up the difference or they’d have to bring back refuelling which won’t happen.

    I’m sure though that teams will come up with a solution to the slow corner issue in time.

    1. Testing is not driven in anger, racing is driven in anger.

  4. Like I hinted a few months ago these cars with better floors and even more massive wings should very quickly surpass the old cars, simpler suspensions and a significant weight gain was easily nullified.

  5. And Ferrari is slow.

  6. Seriously needs to reduce the size and weight of these cars. That will also improve overtaking itself as the drivers can control and throw around their cars more easily if they are lighter. Some drivers said the new cars feel like a truck in slower corners and the biggest difference they feel is the increased weight and reduced visibility.

    Lighter cars with better handling + overtaking-friendly tracks is a much better and simpler solution to improve the show than what we have right now. Fat, oversized cars with fancy floors + difficult to overtake tracks.

    Get it Right Formula1.

    1. One step forward, two steps back – that’s the Formula One way!

      Even the genius of Ross Brawn could only come up with a compromise for the foreseeable future.

    2. Drivers tend to overdramatize on these issues. Plenty of series have even heavier cars and they can race them just fine.

      Reducing weight is a good target, though. It’s just that there is no obvious way to do it. A lot of the extra weight has come from safety improvements to the chassis, the Halo, and of course weight is also a major downside of all the hybrid and electric features.

  7. Not Televising the Barca test is a mistake F1 keeps on making.
    While the first day with new cars is the day that will draw in the most attention and therefore exposure for the sport.

    On the one hand they try to introduce artificial tension to draw in the pundits, on the other hand they leave the lowest hanging fruit hanging…

  8. Andy (@andyfromsandy)
    24th February 2022, 9:00

    What needs fixing is a way to stop the cars porpoising.

    Haas had a broken floor possibly as a result. I think other teams had problems as well but it didn’t stop them from running.

    1. @andyfromsandy They said on Sky Sports News earlier that porpoising is an issue they are all suffering from to varying degrees.

      The Alfa Romeo is apparently suffering really badly from the issue.

  9. I still think the Mercedes will be a beast considering how its tightly packaged and slim on the rear, their floor work is remarkable, although cooling could be an issue.

  10. @stefmeister The first team to totally fix it will probably be away at the front with the advantage.

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