At F1's first official on-track sessions of 2022, we saw the first glimpse of all the new 2022 cars on track together. For three days, teams pounded around Barcelona for a 'shakedown' of the new 2022 cars. Some teams leave Spain in a relatively happy place, and other teams leave it with more work than they would really like. Let's take a look at each team and see who's hot and who's not...
All images taken from teams' respective social media
Summary
F1's so-called 'shakedown' (named this only because Bahrain has exclusive rights to hold the official F1 pre-season test) seemed backwards in more ways than one. For starters, it wasn't a shakedown, it was a full-on test. But more interestingly, reliability seemed to get worse as the days passed. On day 1, there were no on-track interruptions. On day 2, Red Bull had a gearbox problem, so there was a single red flag. On day 3, there were 5 red flags, including two smoky mechanical failures and a crash. But let's look at each team and see what grade they deserve based on their performance in the test (not solely based on lap time, mind you) and see who passed and who failed.
As with most report cards (or the ones we had at school, anyways, there's A-B-C-D-F at play here, and we will use the obligatory +/- to further distinguish the teams from one another.
Top of the Class
Ferrari: A+
The F1-75 promised "innovation" and "interesting solutions" for the new regulations, and the Scuderia did not disappoint. The new car ran reliably throughout testing, and the team completed the most laps out of anyone, which is always good right out of the box. The team's new engine appears to be reliable, despite significant changes over the winter (looking at you, Alpine) and first impressions are that it is powerful enough to at least close the gap to the frontrunners.
Even more encouraging is that the car appears to be stable on track, and also it looks decently quick. Despite Carlos Sainz stating that the team "is not even thinking about performance" at this point, the red cars were often at or near the top of the timesheets each day. Of course, it's not worth anything to be fastest in testing, but rarely is a car at the top of the times slow, even if it is not a given that it is the outright fastest. But, we've seen this story before; Ferrari is fast in testing, looking like the real one to watch, only to fade into relative mediocrity when the season comes around. But this time, there is a little bit of a different feeling this time around. A competitive Ferrari is always good for the sport, so if the Scuderia is fast, everyone wins. Except Mercedes, but that's OK sometimes.
McLaren: A
After the 2021 season started so promisingly, the team in orange (sorry, 'fluoro papaya') seemed to trail off a bit near the end of the season. The new car had a few notable differences compared to the rest of the field when it was unveiled. After years of missing the mark in regards to technical innovation, the team may have finally struck a good balance of calculated risk. Besides one small stoppage in the middle of day 1, when Norris was stuck in the pitlane, the team ran very smoothly.
Like Ferrari, the team often found itself near the top of the timesheets on every day of testing. Like Ferrari, this doesn't mean that the car is necessarily the fastest in the field, but it's a sign that it is at least not slow. Ricciardo and Norris have looked upbeat about their prospects, but are as tight-lipped as usual when it comes to expectations. Nothing major to report here, which is usually the sign of a productive test; if you are turning heads you get a lot of attention for either being suspiciously fast or slow, and I think McLaren will have wanted to be away from the headlines.
Mercedes: A
The W13 looks neat and tidy enough, and did set the fastest time of the test on the final day, which is ominous because Mercedes is notorious for keeping low-key at the winter tests. Of course, the Mercedes PR machine is already in full swing, with George Russell claiming that "a red team and an orange team" look better than them at the moment, but we ought to know better than this at this point. Mercedes always tries to talk itself down and talk up its rivals, and 2022 is no different.
Although there were no real problems with the car in terms of reliability, the team did not rack up the most mileage, which they usually do. They also have notably struggled a lot with F1's new buzzword, porpoising, creating a very bouncy car as the team works through the side effects of the new ground effect rules. First impressions trackside seem to indicate that the team might not enjoy 2014-like dominance, but that the car should be competitive enough. The main intrigue is whether or not Mercedes will turn up to the second test with a heavily revised car; as they have done before, they may be holding their cards close to their chest and unleash a real stunner in Bahrain.
Red Bull: A-
Red Bull did their best to hide any media containing the real RB18 until this week's running, and for good reason. There are a litany of interesting design choices at play here, and the team had a relatively smooth running across the three days in Spain. There was an unfortunate issue which prevented Sergio Perez from completing a decent portion of the team's day 2 plan, but other than that, it was as expected.
Red Bull ended the test with the second fastest car on the timesheets, albeit they did their times on harder tires than Mercedes, so there is at least more time to come from the team. Not much of note to report, like Mercedes, they like to keep things close to their chests, so we will see how things shake out in the desert in a few weeks. I would expect a lot of upgrades and changes tot he car either at the next test, the first race, or both.
A Passing Grade
Williams: B+
The post-George-Russell era at Williams is well underway, and things are looking quietly optimistic. Decked out in the new blue livery of the Dorilton Capital era, the team was probably the most under the radar of any team at this test. They did not have any alarming reliability problems on any of the three days of testing, they did not have any on-track or off-track controversies, they were always around the middle of the timesheets on every day. It's fairly anonymous stuff, but I'm sure any team would take an anonymous testing week over one fraught with reliability questions or constantly having to explain your expectations to the media in every interview.
Nicholas Latifi and Alex Albon seem to have a reasonable enough car at their disposal, with no glaring issues noted by anyone who attended the first test. It's highly unlikely that the team are going to be locking out the front row in Bahrain, but they also probably won't be locking out the back row, either. The team is set up to continue their slow rise back to prominence in 2022, and are looking like they aren't going to have to rely on freak scenarios such as Bottas' Hungarian antics or a washout like in Spa last year to nab a few points. Nothing remarkably great or alarming about the three days in Spain, and Williams will absolutely take that.
AlphaTauri: B-
Italy's second F1 team (Alfa Romeo is technically based in Switzerland) had looked quietly promising for the first 2.5 days of testing. No reliability concerns, a car that looked stable and consistent, and fairly competitive times. Then, Pierre Gasly put the car in the wall in the middle of the final day of testing, which is never good. Pierre was unusually coy about what happened, and the damage he did caused his teammate Tsunoda to miss the entire afternoon session. If Gasly kept his car out of the barriers, the team easily would've been in the top 4, but his mistake (not his first in testing, by the way) surely drops the marks a bit.
Aston Martin: C
The lean, mean, team in green had a very up-and-down test in Spain. Sometimes they were fast, sometimes they were not, some days they ran a lot of laps, other times they had to stop with a mechanical problem. Lawrence Stroll's outfit isn't at championship level yet, and that's not this year's target, but things do look like they might be better than last year. Surely Sebastian Vettel will hope so, because the German can only run on his post-Ferrari high for so long, and another year languishing in the midfield will surely strain relations between him and his team.
Need Improvement
Alpine: D
The pink and blue squad has probably the most pressure on them this year, both internally and externally. Fernando Alonso knew that he wasn't going to have a championship-winning car in 2021, it was always about 2022. And it looks like he might not have a championship winning car in 2022, either. There will inevitably be fireworks if this turns out to be the case. With a bold new title sponsor, the team surely won't be able to hide on track, and the personalities at play, including vocal Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi, ensure they can't hide off it.
The first two days, the team racked up the laps but were notably slow compared to the competition, especially on the straights. Going into this year, the team have pushed for an all-new engine concept. The directive was: performance at all costs, regardless of reliability. Well, there wasn't a lot of performance shown, and the last day ended in a cloud of smoke, so there wasn't a whole lot of reliability, either. There were other problems too: the team had an unspecified issue with their rear wing, specifically the DRS mechanism. The car looked notably more unstable than the rest of the field according to journalists on site. Not great. The glimmer of hope is that, allegedly, the team made a setup breakthrough on the morning of the last day, before it all went up in smoke. All might not be lost if there was a genuine breakthrough, but time will tell. As a full works team looking to join Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari, this was not good enough.
Haas: F
Poor Haas. This was supposed to be a return to respectability, with a whole year focusing on car development at the cost of last year's competitiveness. When the car rolled out, it looked good; well-developed and full of interesting details. Then testing started. The car was unreliable on day 1. Day 2 was more optimistic, with the team racking up over 100 laps and looking respectable on the timesheet. Then day 3 was a disaster, with more reliability problems then day 1.
And that doesn't even include the litany of off-track problems the team faced. Since last year the team has been treading on thin ice regarding its "Russian flag" livery, and the continual problems with Nikita Mazepin. Well, the thin ice has broken, and Haas made the respectable decision to not run in its usual colors on the final day, and just ran a white car. Before the next test, the team has to sort out if its Russian title sponsor is a viable option, what impact any changes might have on its budget, if it's going to retain Nikita Mazepin if there is no more backing, AND how to solve its reliability problems and chase performance that looks like might actually be there in the VF-22. Sheesh.
Alfa Romeo: F
Well Haas' week was bad, but arguably Alfa Romeo's test was even worse. Less reliable than the Haas and not showing as much potential, the C42 looked like a lemon if there ever was one. Electing to run in a camo livery couldn't hide the fact that they are well and truly behind the 8-ball. Guanyu Zhou had a respectable amount of running, but Valtteri Bottas seemed to carry the bad luck that followed him at Mercedes right to Alfa Romeo, as the Finn completed notably fewer laps than the rest of the field. The Sauber-run squad must do better in Bahrain. That is not an option, especially for a team that by its own admission had fairly high expectations heading into this season.
Who surprised you this week?
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