2022 F1 Season Predictions

It's time to put your money where your mouth is. testing is over, and up next is the real thing. That said, it's not exactly clear which teams have it together and which are in for a year of pain. Time to go big or go home...

Everyone's going to do this, and I'm no different in that respect. However, there may be a few surprises, and in the interest in saving time, I won't elaborate on every single prediction for the drivers' championship, but will shed some insight on the teams' fortunes.

Constructor's Championship

General

Before I reveal my predictions for the teams' standings, let's get one thing straight: I think that all teams will score points this year, and that the competitive spread will be much tighter than previous years. However, someone's got to come last...

Also, this is trying to anticipate things across the entire season, not just at the first handful of races as teams still figure out their cars. So, I think that this order may be very different to the grid for the Bahrain GP, but we have to account for driver performance, car development, general operational excellence, as well as outright pace. Realistically, each team on this list could be +/- 2 positions, but in the end we have to choose just one place for each.

10. Williams

The team will close the gap to the front in terms of laptime, but they will really miss talisman George Russell to pull out the miraculous qualifying performances that the team had last year. I think the team might have moved forward, but those around them have moved forward even more.

9. Haas

This one kind of pains me, because I really think the team has potential to come out of the blocks as the fifth best team, but I think they will slip back as the season goes on. The team has never really been superb at in-season development and operationally they have been too inconsistent to be trusted, especially under pressure. I hope I'm wrong here.

8. Aston Martin

The green team will have what can best be described as an "uncomfortable" season in 2022. The car might be serviceable enough to pull out the odd good result, but generally I do not foresee a great leap up the order this year. Seb Vettel may well become disillusioned enough with the midfield life that he calls it quits on F1, and while Lance Stroll is good enough to not hold the team back, you'd have to admit he's not exactly Verstappen or Hamilton, either.

7. Alfa Romeo

The Swiss-Italian Sauber-run Alfa Romeo team (there's a mouthful) will take the mantle of this year's most improved team. I think the car could easily be sixth quickest or better, but as we saw in 2021, Alfa Romeo is not exactly the gold standard of execution when it comes to reliability and strategy. Bottas will outperform Zhou, although I don't think we will see a Gasly-Tsunoda-2021-type demolition job, more like Ricciardo and Norris in 2021.

6. AlphaTauri

Red Bull's second team (NOT a junior team, officially at least) is very hard to place. The car looks solid if unspectacular, and I think p6/10 is fairly representative of "solid but unspectacular." I don't think the ceiling of the car is as high relative to the front runners as last year (when Gasly regularly qualified in the top six), but the relative improvement of Tsunoda will mean that the team finishes in the same position as last year.

5. McLaren

What started off looking like a possible title outsider rapidly deteriorated into a borderline shambolic performance in the Bahrain test. I think that the reality is somewhere in between. The top "customer" team, McLaren will probably perform about as well as they did last year relative to the rest of the field, but I think that one again it will be a Lando Norris show. Daniel Ricciardo talked endlessly about the impact of only having three days of testing last year, and how that contributed to his struggles. Well, this year he's in the same boat, but his teammate and the rest of the grid (except Kevin Magnussen) are not. Far from ideal.

4. Alpine

Do I believe in 'El Plan' as many people do? No, not really. But, the team has been more or less handicapped by running what is effectively the 2019 chassis for three years, and had an engine that is probably 30hp down on the leaders. It's a new year, new engine, and new car, so the fruit should be hanging lower for Alpine than for some others. If the car is average, the driver pairing is far above that, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a tight battle between Alpine and McLaren waging for most of the year.

3. Ferrari

I think that the top three teams will be exceptionally close, but will have different paths to their ultimate championship position. I think Ferrari will start the year really strong, and challenge for wins especially in the first half of the season. For many years, not just in 2017 and 2018 as has been highlighted, Ferrari has failed to sustain a title challenge through effective car development, and this year may just fall the same way. Sorry, tifosi...

2. Mercedes

I think that Mercedes will have the opposite arc to Ferrari, as they may stumble out of the blocks and even have to watch their backs in the first couple of races while they sort out any problems with the W13. However, I think the team will be back in full swing by midseason and will end the year in a similar fashion to last year, although it might just be a little too late to overcome the first team...

Constructor's Champions - Red Bull

Last year's runner-up team will go one better this year, as a combination of Ferrari's mid-season decline and Mercedes' slow start mean that Red Bull will be able to accumulate enough points to walk away as champions even if their car isn't always the fastest on a given weekend. If Sergio Perez can be as close to max as he was in Baku, Austin, Mexico, and Abu Dhabi, then I would expect that the team's fortunes will greatly benefit, as we know how hard it can be to get around him on the track...

Final Table:

Driver's Championship

General

Like the constructor's, I don't think this will be a breeze one way or another, but I think we will not have the drama we had in 2021, either. After the top 3, it's more or less a complete lottery as to who finishes where, so I'm not even going to pretend to have any kind of rational argument.

A few notes:

I think there will be seven winners this year, and there will be 13 different drivers on the podium. Max Verstappen will win the title, in significantly less controversial circumstances than last year, but it won't be an easy cruise. The main reason why I believe this will happen is that both Ferrari and Mercedes will fall into the trap of having two teammates that often take points off each other. While Checo will be closer to Verstappen than last year, he will only rarely be in a position to take points off of him, which bodes well for Max.

Down the grid, I think that the group from Ocon to Tsunoda will be extremely closely matched in points, with a bit of a buffer between them and the group from Vettel to Latifi. I think that all teams will score points, but I'm not convinced that Latifi will, as Albon just seems to have a little more in the tank. If he fails to score, I think he will be out the door at the end of the year.

3 Realistic predictions

I would just give bold predictions, but I think that some of these will have to be reasonably achievable, and so the three I think are most likely will be here.

Either Vettel or Alonso will retire at the end of this year.

Based on my predictions above, you would be inclined to think this will be Seb, but Alonso is much, much older than him, and needs to win ASAP, which is something that I don't think will happen this year. With Oscar Piastri waiting in the wings, Alpine are in a use-him-or-lose-him scenario, and Ocon is on a long contract and is much more likely to stay long term, as well as mentor Piastri if he does come in. Realistically we could see both leaving, even before the year's end.

Lando Norris will win his first race this year.

It almost happened last year, in Italy and also in Sochi (sorry, Lando fans), and this year will be the year. Although I put McLaren back a place in the team standings, I think they will be as competitive as last year. So if they nearly won last year, it's feasible that they pull it off this time around, right?

Andretti's F1 team will be announced in the first half of the year.

I think F1 and the FIA would be crazy to let this slip through their fingers. Clearly Michael Andretti is serious about F1, and Colton Herta is quickly becoming a hot prospect on both sides of the Atlantic. I think the process has already been handled, but F1 will wait for a Miami homecoming of sorts to let the cat out of the bag.

5 Bold predictions

These are a bit more out there, and some of them may directly contradict what I say before, but you have to go big or go home.

Haas will have at least one double-Q3 appearance.

Come on, I have to show some love for the 'local' team. As we saw last year, all it takes is one session of changeable conditions and you can go from zero to hero, as Williams did qualifying P2 and P11 in Begium last year. I think Haas can at least go one better and get both Mick and K-Mag into the top 10 shootout at least once.

Yuki Tsunoda will beat Pierre Gasly in the qualifying head-to-head.

OK, last year wasn't great from Yuki, as he was 1 for 21 against Pierre, but that 1 was the last race. We know that raw speed has never been Tsunoda's problem, it's keeping himself under control. I still expect Pierre to finish ahead most Sundays, but on Saturday I expect some surprises from Yuki.

Williams will be the only team without a podium.

Yes, I know this implies that Haas and Alfa Romeo will score a podium. But hear me out; I think that pretty much any of the teams behind the top 3 have a shot to be best of the rest on any given weekend. As we know, it only takes one missed braking point from someone into Turn 1 to turn a race upside down. Williams might just lack that last little bit of extra pace to hold onto things, even if they find themselves in that position.

The Ferrari bromance will end in tears.

Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc are likeable drivers, and by all accounts get along well. It's always said "wait until they have a car capable of winning races, then the gloves will come off," and I think this is the year. We saw it with Lewis and Nico Rosberg in 2014-16, and those two were friends for a lot longer than Carlos and Charles.

Red Bull, McLaren, AlphaTauri, Alfa Romeo, Williams, and Alpine will have different driver lineups in 2023.

Pretty self-explanatory; Max isn't going anywhere, neither is Lando, Pierre Gasly has to either move up or move out of AlphaTauri, Williams will need new energy, and Alpine will have no choice but to promote Oscar Piastri to avoid him being poached by rivals.

Got any predictions of your own? Discuss below or on Twitter...