What To Expect From The 2022 Formula 1 Season
The global motorsport circus that is Formula One is back! At the time of writing, we've just finished an interesting week of testing at the Circuit Barcelona de Catalunya, with teams unveiling their answers to Formula One's new technical regulations. By the time you read this, we will have seen another testing session in the deserts of Bahrain and the Bahrain Grand Prix and an exciting Saudi Arabian GP. This is the first time since 2017 that we've seen Lewis Hamilton start a season fighting to regain the title. Famously last season, we saw Red Bull's Max Verstappen mount an almighty season-long challenge against the British Mercedes driver. A challenge that came to a head on the final lap of the last race. Will we see that drama again? It's unlikely.
The FIA, Formula One's governing body, is currently reviewing the sport's guidelines and rules to stop such an event from happening again. The FIA has a new leader, Mohammed bin Sulayem, who'll be looking to lead the motorsport world onwards into a new era. We've already seen Michael Masi, the race director who was ultimately at fault for the misuse of the safety car in Abu Dhabi, step down from his role, now replaced by Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas.
Changes have already been made to the way the sport is run. The controversial Sprint will be held in two new locations, Imola and the Red Bull Ring, and a third Sprint event in São Paulo. Points for this shortened Saturday race have been changed too. Gone are the 3 points for first, 2 for second and 1 for third. More points are available to drivers and teams finishing in the top eight, working down numerically from eight points for first place.
In a bid to prevent the chaos of the weather-disrupted Belgian Grand Prix from happening again, F1 and the FIA have adjusted the rules about races that are cut short. In Belgium, despite the appalling conditions, the cars were led around the track behind the safety for three laps: which, once you account for the two-lap countback, meant that only one lap of "racing" had occurred. Half points were duly awarded as the race had not eclipsed the 75% distance required for full points to be awarded, and that was that. Fans both at home and on the sodden Stavelot hillsides were furious at this action. In declaring a "race" result, the event wasn't deemed cancelled under 'Force Majeure rules, so refunds were not handed out to disgruntled guests.
Now, two laps must be completed under green flag conditions for any points to be awarded. F more than two laps are completed but less than 25% of the scheduled race distance, points will be awarded on a 6, 4, 3, 2, 1 basis to the top five. If 25%–50% of the scheduled race distance is completed, it'll be 13, 10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 across the top nine finishers. If we see 50%–75% of the scheduled race distance, 19, 14, 12, 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 1 will be handed out to the top ten. And if a driver completes more than 75% of the race, they will be awarded full points by the standard system.
It's not only the rules of the sport that have changed for the 2022 season but also the cars. New design rules mean we'll see cars with a very different approach to the aerodynamics on track this season. The new cleaner front wings no longer produce the "Y250 vortex", the rivulets of air that ran along the sides of the car. These torrents of air produced a large amount of the "dirty air" that made following other cars closely so tricky.
Another immediately obvious difference is the new rear wing. Gone are the massive endplates and sharp angles famous for producing swirling vortices; you could see them like contrails on the wing. While the new rear wing leaves a cleaner stream of air for following cars, it does produce less downforce than before. This is made up for by the floor.
The floor is now a critical element in creating downforce on this new generation of cars. We now have two distinct channels running along the bottom of the car, working the ground effect. We haven't seen this sort of technology in the sport since the late '70s and the '80s. The concept works similarly to an aeroplane's wing but upside down. The whole floor of the car forms one surface, while the top of the car forms the other half, together they create an area of low pressure beneath the car and an area of high pressure above it. The two different pockets of pressure push and suck the car down to the track in tandem. This allows cars to corner at significantly higher speeds. Brabham took this technology to its very limits with its BT46B in 1978, which used a fan beneath the car to increase the downward 'suck' effect.
This year, there will not be any "Fan Cars" on track, nor any of the sliding skirts that we saw on the Lotus 78, but the principle is very much the same. The issue is that it can create an effect known as porpoising. This is where the cars generate so much downforce that they are sucked into the ground. Here the underside of the car connects with the tarmac, disrupting the airflow and breaking the downforce. The car then rises up off the ground, only for effect to start over again, drawing the car down again. This vertical motion begins to oscillate the car. It looks like the car is moving like a dolphin or a porpoise diving in and out of the water. Hence the name. It is a tricky phenomenon to overcome, and not all the teams appeared to suffer from it in Spain. For those that did, it'll be interesting to see how they overcome the issues, if at all they do.
The new wheel and tyre setup are one of the final big changes to the cars for the 2022 season. Gone are the old and now seemingly tiny 13-inch combos, now replaced by an 18-inch package. A reduced sidewall on the new Pirellis provides a different dynamic experience for drivers and a new tyre family for teams to learn and eek the best from. The winglets over the top are designed to cut back and tidy up the dirty air that the wheels create. One immediate issue that the new wheels have caused is visibility, the taller tyres taking up some of the sightlines.
While the engines haven't changed, their fuel has. In a bid to reduce its net CO2, F1 has swapped to using a 10% bio-ethanol fuel, the same percentage as what you'd find in pumps on petrol forecourts here in the UK. Previously it was a little over 5%.
Overall, the chassis has seen some changes. All the cars are significantly heavier, primarily down to those wheels. The cars are also more robust and stiffer, now better able to withstand the sort of impacts that we saw with Romain Grosjean in Bahrain in 2020.
Written by Jesse Billington
Jesse is a freelance motorsport photojournalist covering most things with wheels from F1 to classic motor racing. He also hosts The Undercut Podcast.
Social media handles: Jesse On Cars - YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
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