Before the start of the European season (and Canada), let's take a look at where each team ranks in terms of raw speed, across each race so far...
The Supertime Method
How this has been calculated is by taking the difference between each team's best lap time during qualifying and the fastest lap time during qualifying as a percentage of the fastest lap time during qualifying. So, having the fastest car translates to a value of 0.0%, because there is zero difference to the fastest time. Higher numbers are not your friend here. Also, by sticking to qualifying, it gives us a fairly representative look at a car's outright potential, as well as providing similar track conditions for everyone. And the numbers make for some interesting reading...
The Results
x - denotes average value; for additional help on box plots, read this
Fancy chart; what does it say? Well, I used a box plot because not only can we see how teams compare on average, but also how they stack up in terms of consistency. Average is straightforward, but consistency can be generally characterized by the height of the box. A short box means that most of your results are on the same level. A tall box says that you are all over the place; some weeks much more competitive than others. Now, five races is the absolute minimum really for a box plot, but we can redo this analysis later in the year with more data points and the picture should be even more accurate. Nevertheless, there are still some useful conclusions we can draw already. Additionally, here is a list of the teams in order of fastest to slowest, based on supertimes so far.
Ferrari: +0.006%
Red Bull: +0.145%
Mercedes: +1.149%
McLaren: +1.180%
Alpine: +1.186%
Alfa Romeo: +1.190%
AlphaTauri: +1.454%
Haas: +1.727%
Aston Martin: +2.421%
Williams: +2.921%
As well as the box plot, we can draw some conclusions from looking at a graph of each team's performance at each race, and see generally who is trending in the right direction and who is not.
At the Front
Ferrari
Ranking: 1st
Most Competitive Race: Australia
Least Competitive Race: Saudi Arabia
Remember that the fastest time in qualifying is not always set during the final runs of Q3, which helps Ferrari here. Still, on one-lap pace the F1-75 is the car to beat, with even its worst weekend being only 0.028% off of Sergio Perez's time in Saudi Arabia. Ironically the worst part of Ferrari's weekend seems to be the race itself, when it seems to burn through its Pirellis a little bit more and lacks the last few critical miles per hour at the end of the straights. For many years the opposite was true for Ferrari.
Red Bull
Ranking: 2nd
Most Competitive Race: Saudi Arabia
Least Competitive Race: Australia
Red Bull and Ferrari are clear of the field, underscored by the fact that Red Bull's worst weekend is still better than anyone else's except Ferrari. The RB18 might not always be the fastest on a single lap, but as we know it is more than a match for the Reds when it manages to finish a race.
The Midfield Mess
Mercedes
Ranking: 3rd
Most Competitive Race: Bahrain
Least Competitive Race: Imola
The gap between Red Bull and Mercedes is larger than the gap from Mercedes to Haas, at just over 1%. That's huge in F1 terms. Maybe even weirder is the fact that the gap between Ferrari and Red Bull is larger than the gap from Mercedes to Alfa Romeo. This highlights just how tight the group from third to sixth is. We know that generally speaking the Mercedes is more competitive in the races, but the closeness of the midfield means that realistically at least eight drivers have a chance to start fifth every weekend.
Perhaps most alarming for Mercedes is the fact that its best race of the year was in Bahrain, and after that it got further and further away from the top two, until a first improvement in Miami. Was that a sign of things to come or just a flash in the pan? Who knows, but we can find out in about a week or so.
McLaren
Ranking: 4th
Most Competitive Race: Imola
Least Competitive Race: Saudi Arabia
Without any data, I would have nowhere to place McLaren. In the first two races they were woefully off the pace, but have gotten better after that. Miami may have been a slight relapse, but at this point it's not really clear why, other than the fact that McLaren's worst races all came in hot temperatures. Is this a coincidence? Probably, but if not then the team in orange is in for a bad summer.
Alpine
Ranking: 5th
Most Competitive Race: Saudi Arabia
Least Competitive Race: Miami
What has become F1's most average team continues to uphold that moniker, as they find themselves fifth out of ten teams. Alpine's most impressive stat is the fact that they only trail the top two teams when it comes to consistency, suggesting they are doing a decent job of extracting the maximum from their car over one lap at least. The team is yet to have a clean weekend with both cars, so perhaps there is more potential still to come.
Alfa Romeo
Ranking: 6th
Most Competitive Race: Miami
Least Competitive Race: Australia
It says a lot about the Sauber-run team's improvement that I was surprised to find them down in sixth, at least until I saw how close the gaps are. The team looks transformed from 2021, where they seemed to be going through the motions without any real hope or conviction, despite what I maintain to be a decent car in the C41. Miami was the team's best weekend yet in terms of single-lap speed, and with a little tighter execution and reliability, I would expect them to be in the hunt for fourth by the end of the year.
Within Striking Distance
AlphaTauri
Ranking: 7th
Most Competitive Race: Miami
Least Competitive Race: Imola
Just behind the insanely tight group of midfield teams are two teams, the faster of which is AlphaTauri. The Faenza-based squad seems to have a car which is all-around decent, but lacks any single outstanding quality. The team is regularly on the fringes of Q3 and the fight for points, and their ranking reflects this. Certainly a step back from last year's giant-killing efforts, but still within striking range.
Haas
Ranking: 8th
Most Competitive Race: Bahrain
Least Competitive Race: Australia
A stark improvement from the doldrums of 2021, Haas can at least enter each weekend with a realistic hope of points. However, the team has already lost multiple points from both poor strategy and driver mistakes, and without the immediate promise of new upgrades, the team will be hoping for others to mess up more than them to make genuine progress. It seems to be a trend with Haas that their best race of the year is the first, and 2022 has done nothing to disprove this theory so far.
Stragglers
Aston Martin
Ranking: 9th
Most Competitive Race: Miami
Least Competitive Race: Australia
Quite a ways off of even the previous two teams comes to historic British racing names, the first of which is Aston Martin. This year has not been a smooth ride both literally and figuratively for the team in green, and their wild inconsistency shows this. Their Australia weekend really was as bad as it looked, but marked improvement in the last two races has provided a glimmer of hope that 2022 may not be a complete lost cause.
Note: The numbers shown do not take into account Hulkenberg's appearances, so the first two races are purely dependent on Stroll's efforts, which might skew the results slightly.
Williams
Ranking: 10th
Most Competitive Race: Bahrain
Least Competitive Race: Imola
Unsurprisingly, Williams finds itself at the bottom of the table for another year, but the reality is that the car is not as bad in the races. The team has shown that when it gets its setup and strategy right, the car can steal a point or two, and Miami offered some hope of genuine progress (in practice at least). Unfortunately the supertimes metric is probably the one that Williams would fare the worst in, but we have to be fair to everyone. Also, the car itself isn't that great unfortunately.
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