If Formula 1’s new rules package has done anything, it’s that the battle in midfield appears to be closer than ever. While McLaren is currently in the best position to pull away anytime soon, there are good reasons why the team remains cautious about forecasts.
At the 2022 season opener in Bahrain, all attention was focused on Mercedes’ difficulties, while Ferrari drew attention to themselves with an impressive all-round package, the Scuderia managing to sidestep the porpoising typical of the 2022 cars without too much performance to sacrifice.
Behind the top teams, Haas and Alfa Romeo appeared to have outstripped the rest of the midfield in Bahrain, with McLaren and Aston Martin notably disappointing with great difficulty.
No clear pattern like late 2021
While McLaren got its brakes overheating issues under control and recovered, Aston Martin pinned its hopes on a B-Spec, dubbed the green Red Bull due to its resemblance to the RB18.
However, over the course of the first few races, all of the midfield teams seemed to be converging more and more as initial reliability problems were overcome and better set-ups were found for the all-new car concept.
Whilst there was still a predictable pattern late in the 2021 season as McLaren fell behind Ferrari to clearly be the fourth strongest force in midfield, it remains to be seen how the battle in midfield will play out in 2022 as performances continue from weekend to weekend fluctuate heavily.
McLaren: “The goal is clearly P4”
“As far as competitiveness is concerned, it is difficult to make a forecast at the moment,” says McLaren team boss Andreas Seidl. “We made a good step forward in Barcelona and fixed some of the car’s weaknesses.”
“At the same time, a lot of other teams have done that too. Again, Baku and Montreal are very different tracks, so I think it’s really difficult to predict. We’ve seen big swings in the pecking order this year, so I’m very good with predictions careful.”
“Our goal is very clear, we want to fight for P4 in the championship and I think that together with Lando and Daniel we have everything in the team to do that,” said Seidl. “We know that the competition will not stand still, so we have to make sure that we continue to develop this car as well.”
Why Haas hasn’t brought any updates yet
As well as the McLaren team, midfield rivals Alfa Romeo and more broadly Aston Martin also brought major packages of updates to the track in Spain in a bid to gain an advantage. Only the Haas team still manages without a major update in the season.
Alfa Romeo driver Valtteri Bottas was therefore visibly confused after qualifying in Barcelona that he was only able to beat Kevin Magnussen in the Haas by a tenth, because the Haas, unlike the Alfa Romeo, was running without any upgrades.
As Steiner explained at the time, it made more sense for the team to use the familiar Barcelona track as a test bed to thoroughly test the current Haas package and really understand its strengths and weaknesses, rather than just assembling parts without knowing what it really takes.
“You usually bring upgrades to Barcelona because you know the track. On the other hand, I thought it was a good time to get the best out of the current car because we know the track well,” says the Haas team boss .
Steiner: Better none than faulty upgrades
“Had we brought updates that we didn’t understand it might have actually been slower instead of faster. So we’ve used that to get the most out of the package so far so hopefully for the next few races we can keep that base and then we will bring updates later.”
It remains to be seen when Haas will roll out its upgrades as the upcoming street circuits in Baku and Montreal are more outliers. The British Grand Prix at Silverstone in July will be the next ‘traditional’ circuit with high-speed corners, requiring an excellent all-round package.
Steiner points out that introducing upgrades is no guarantee of performance. The budget cap means that teams can only make a limited number of upgrades to their cars, meaning that each part must be carefully considered in order to achieve the best lap time.
However, teams like Haas and Alfa Romeo will not fail because of the budget ceiling, but because of the budget itself, since it is assumed that the smaller teams are not yet operating at the cost cap of $140 million, but are slightly below it.
Seidl: “Impossible to predict”
Still, getting the most out of the updates can take some time, mainly because the current suite of street circuits makes it harder to gauge progress. As some teams continue to explore their Spanish Grand Prix upgrades and others, like Haas, roll out parts later, the midfield picture could change dramatically in the coming weeks.
“It’s still so early with these new cars. You can see how it can vary from one track to the next,” Seidl continued. “Most of the teams have upgraded their cars for Barcelona. Monaco was a very special track of course. And what that all means now, the upgrades everyone has brought for the upcoming tracks is, to be honest, impossible to predict.”
“Also we must not forget that the competition is so strong that one or two tenths more or less means suddenly you are in P13 or P14 instead of being able to fight for P7 or P8.”
Alfa Romeo Pace in Monaco shows how fast it can go
AlphaTauri technical director Jody Egginton, whose team was involved on and off in the first seven races, believes that the steep development curve in 2022 will continue to provide many surprises, such as the fact that Alfa Romeo has its role as secret favourite could not live up to in Monaco despite the much-vaunted pace in slow corners.
“I think there were some ups and downs in midfield. In Spain we were in a lower position than usual in midfield. But before that, we thought our car was fairly consistent,” says Egginton. “The order changed again in Monaco. A lot of people expected the Alfa Romeos to be particularly strong, but they’ve had a tough weekend.”
“I think it’s partly because we still don’t really know the car,” he surmises. “Our launch car was miles away from where we are now, so the pace of development is quite fast at the moment. And the characteristics of the car at the first test in Spain were also very different from the race.”
“I think we just have to learn together where we want to go with the car. But within the midfield there are a lot more changes in the pecking order,” said the AlphaTauri technical director.
Steiner: Budget cap helps racing in midfield
The midfield is so capricious that despite every team’s good and bad weekends, just 19 points separate McLaren, Alfa Romeo and Alpine in the battle for fourth, while AlphaTauri, Haas and Aston Martin are looking to catch up.
Steiner believes that the convergence of the midfield is also due to the budget cap introduced in Formula 1 in 2021, which is currently coming under pressure from lobbying by the larger teams.
“You can see that the midfield has moved much closer together,” says Steiner. “McLaren was strong in some races, then it went downhill and suddenly the Alpine were strong in one race. It messes everything up.”
“In the medium to long term I think it’s going to get even tighter, but that’s why we shouldn’t change the budget cap now and increase it because now it’s good for midfield racing. You never know who’s best-of-the-rest will be.”
“The Alfa Romeo was by far the best car in Barcelona in my opinion, while maybe three races ago it wasn’t quite as good. So it’s a good mix. And I think if we continue with the budget constraint we will get closer to the top teams,” the Haas team boss hopes.