The state of the early 2022 F1 pecking order as Barcelona testing ends

No matter how interesting the new cars are, Formula 1 is of no significance compared to the horror of war breaking out in Ukraine. But, what it can do, hopefully, is provide the escapism of sport – even during testing.

New designs, new drivers, new rules returning to an old problem – there has been plenty to dig into over the three days of running at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. As ever, the usual caveats of testing apply, as all the teams and drivers are keen to point out at every available opportunity. Everyone is somewhere and everyone is nowhere.

But, by combining the headline times, the reasons behind the biggest on-and-off track developments of the test – clearly not a shakedown as billed by F1 – snippets of insight taken in on trackside wanders, plus data and information provided by paddock sources, we can at least paint a picture of how things appear to stand now Barcelona is in the books.

By the time the paddock reconvenes in Bahrain in two weeks that picture will develop and alter, the full reality finally revealed by the stopwatch come qualifying at the Sakhir venue a further week on. So, here’s what we know so far.

Nikita Mazepin, Haas VF-22

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The problems at the ‘back’

Sport and politics can never be separated but, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine took events in eastern Europe well beyond that stage, a consequence was Haas’s test ending up being eclipsed by outside events.

The squad’s Russian sponsor Uralkali’s branding and colours were removed from the VF-22 for the final day and Nikita Mazepin’s drive with the team appears to be under major threat.

Haas’s on-track plans also took a hit, as reliability problems mounted to mean the team racked up the lowest lap total of any squad – 160 versus Ferrari’s 439. The main problems were an oil system leak, which cost it most of the final day, a damaged fuel pump, a cooling leak and floor damage on day one.

Haas also ends up ninth in the overall times, with a best lap of 1m21.512s set by Mazepin on the C3s. But the team’s 2022 challenger has an intricate design that has at least caught the eye of rival squads.

"I am confident we can make up the time we lost and be fully ready for the season ahead" Valtteri Bottas

“Hopefully in Bahrain we don’t have any gremlins,” concluded team boss Gunther Steiner.

At least Haas isn’t propping up the times, which is where Alfa Romeo finds itself right now. The Sauber-run squad is another that is low on mileage too, with a total just 15 higher than that of Haas. Alfa also lost time to mechanical maladies, with rookie driver Guanyu Zhou additionally causing one of five red flags on the final day when he spun off at the long, Turn 10 hairpin.

The incident unfolded in front of Autosport and occurred just as a several cars were charging hard on performance runs with under an hour of the morning session remaining. Zhou lost the rear of the C42 just after turn-in for the left hander and, although he fought hard to gather things up, it was it no avail and the car was beached in the gravel.

Rookie mistakes are to be expected, but the overall loss of track time compounds the problem for Alfa, which needs to learn as much as it can about its new car – and the porpoising problem that is causing damage and set-up challenges at all the teams – as its driver is learning his F1 craft at the same time. The suggestion from rival squads is that right now, Alfa is in trouble at the back.

“I am confident we can make up the time we lost and be fully ready for the season ahead,” said new signing Valtteri Bottas, who ended up with a best time only ahead of reserve driver Robert Kubica’s from the opening morning at the rear of the pack, with Zhou setting Alfa’s 10th place-earning 1m21.885s on the C3s on day two.

Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo C42

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The Barcelona ‘midfield’

Despite Camp Nou being just down the road, what we’re discussing here concerns another pack of teams that all showed potential, were hoping for more progress, and all encountered particular problems. None of these teams is necessarily off the pace conclusively, their grouping in a ‘midfield’ tag just reflects how events unfolded and why, and feels as appropriate a term for F1 as it does for football.

Alpine was feeling confident after completing 252 laps across the opening two days of running. A race simulation with Esteban Ocon at the wheel had been achieved, with just a broken floor bracket costing the team a little time to fix it. But, just as Fernando Alonso was showing strong pace at the start of the final day, disaster struck.

A hydraulics problem caused a fire at the rear of the car and the resulting damage meant the team took no further part than the near hour Alonso had been running for. While this alone was a major setback, Alpine appeared to have significant work to do to improve the A522’s balance after Alonso was clocked having the hardest time of any driver navigating the sluggish handling through slow corners – such as the long, right-hand Turn 4 - on the opening day. The car was sliding and Alonso was hesitant on the power, but the lost final day cost Alpine the chance to show off its progress in the subsequent running.

One bright note for Alpine is the team’s high placing in the order of best times through Barcelona’s third sector over the whole test. This has long been a benchmark of how cars are treating their tyres, although a notable caveat is that in testing drivers regularly lift off the power coming out of the final corner here to disguise their true performance level.

Nevertheless, data Autosport has gathered puts Alpine, which recorded the eighth fastest time of the test, a lap set on the C3s, fourth behind Mercedes and Red Bull and Ferrari through the best sector threes set from across the test. This is encouraging for the team that could only leave on the message that it is looking “forward to be back in action at the next test in Bahrain”, in a statement released after the fire stoppage.

Another squad that ended this event on the backfoot having shown flashes of promise is AlphaTauri. The team finished with the sixth fastest time thanks to Pierre Gasly’s 1m19.918s on day two – set on the C4s – but missed out on the performance running late on the final day because of the Frenchman’s Turn 5 crash in the morning session.

Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri AT03, Nikita Mazepin, Haas VF-22

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The damage was severe enough to require two team members to ride alongside the car on the recovery truck, holding the car in its design-hiding bag as it returned to the pitlane. Other machines that needed to be carried back to the pits were secured with straps alone.

The AT03 appears to be another solid and compliant platform for the AlphaTauri drivers to work with, features that have served the team well in recent seasons, but it can clearly bite given Gasly’s crash.

“I think that we have a really strong foundation for the year,” team boss Franz Tost reflected. “Unfortunately, Pierre had a lock-up of the front tyres, which meant he spun off [and damaged the car].”

"I think that we have a really strong foundation for the year" Franz Tost

Williams ended up just behind AlphaTauri in the overall times, with Alex Albon’s 1m20.318s on the C4s on the final day standing as its best one-lap result. But the team was significantly ahead of the other ‘midfield’ teams in terms of laps completed – coming in just 11 short of Red Bull (third overall) on 347.

But what really stood out for Williams this week was the feeling the team was giving off about its chances in 2022. Although its true place in the pecking order remains as clouded as it does for everyone else, Williams is confident it is in the mix with other squads and seems likely not set for a backmarker campaign. Its design, most notably with its svelte nose and eye-catching sidepods, plus a gorgeous livery, is turning heads.

One possible negative for Williams concerned the puffs of smoke the FW44 was producing when Albon stepped on the gas at corner exit on the final afternoon. Although more than likely an oil overfill, which is what the team itself suspects, there have been suggestions for the entire field that the bumpy ride the ground-effect cars are having at top speed isn’t exactly making things easy for engines. And the works Mercedes and McLaren were not spotted having this occurrence.

"With the 2021 cars being largely carried over from 2020, it has been enjoyable to once again get to grips with a whole new car," said Williams’ head of vehicle performance, Dave Robson.

Marshals assist Sebastian Vettel, Aston Martin AMR22, after a technical failure results in smoke

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Aston Martin ends up as the fastest of this ‘midfield’ pack thanks to Sebastian Vettel’s 1m19.824s on the C5s on the final morning, but it too was brought down by a dramatic reliability failure a short while after that lap was posted.

Just a few minutes after the track had gone green again after Zhou caused a second red flag when he pulled over on the pit straight after his Alfa suffered a hydraulic leak, Vettel arrived at Turn 10. Like the Alfa earlier on Friday, the rear of his car swung around and he therefore scampered into the gravel – but it soon became apparent this was down to a big car problem.

An oil leak caused a fire and smoke was soon pouring from the AMR22’s rear, so Vettel leapt out and grabbed a fire extinguisher – joining the quickly attending marshals in dousing the car. But, before this, he had been looking quick on the C4 rubber, albeit hustling and hurrying his machine in a way the ever-planted Mercedes and Red Bull drivers – George Russell and Max Verstappen at that stage – were not.

“My first impression of the AMR22 has been relatively positive,” said Vettel. “So, I am really looking forward to working with the team to take further forward steps in Bahrain. It was a shame to end the day with an issue, but we have completed many laps [sixth on 296], so we can be happy with our work this week.”

George Russell, Mercedes W13

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The ‘frontrunners’ so far

The headline results of the Barcelona test have a group of legendary squads apparently leading the way, with all four not only showing strong pace – and all insisting there is much more to come – but fine reliability to boot. The question though seems to be if this a clear top four, always with the potential to grow to include more squads come qualifying in Bahrain as F1 hopes, or if two are indeed clear of the rest as it was before…

Ferrari topped the second day and has produced what appears to be a very consistent machine in the corners. Its on-track running was essentially bulletproof as it managed the biggest lap count of all the teams.

Carlos Sainz Jr said Ferrari is “nowhere near to the limit of the car or finding where the performance is” and that “with my car just by adding fuel or taking out fuel I can go three or four seconds faster or slower”. But what is clear is that the F1-75 has impressed rival teams – and certainly not just because of its superb livery, which has been well received in the paddock (as has, on a sartorial note, the decision to clothe the Scuderia’s team members in black trousers for the first time in a generation).

Ferrari topped the second day and has produced what appears to be a very consistent machine in the corners

One possible negative assessment for Ferrari was how loud its car was sounding across the three days, suggesting its engine may have been turned up more compared to other teams – most notably Red Bull, which was cutting its way around Barcelona at a far quieter level than any other car.

Ferrari was edged out in the one lap stakes by McLaren, as Charles Leclerc’s 1m19.689s on the C3s on the second afternoon came in just 0.121s behind Lando Norris’s effort on the C4s from the opening day. McLaren is likewise looking compliant and predictable for its drivers through the corners.

But it was notable how often McLaren was dousing the MCL36 in flow-viz aero tracing paint. This could of course be down to the team opting to use fluorescent yellow as opposed to the white variety used, for example, at Mercedes, but the team was keen to downplay its potential during launch season as a result of its new windtunnel still being constructed at its Woking base. Correlating what it has been testing in Toyota’s Cologne facility will have been high on the team’s priority list this week. Plus, Norris lost time when he stopped at the pit exit during the opening afternoon and had to be recovered by his mechanics.

Lando Norris, McLaren MCL36, with aero paint applied

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

“The competition is looking very tight between the teams,” said McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl. “There doesn’t appear to be any clear leader or backmarker at this stage, even though there are a wide range of philosophies and solutions up and down the grid.”

At the top of the times come, shockingly, Red Bull and Mercedes. Their rivals had insisted the 2021 frontrunners would retain elements of what made them so successful last year, in terms of race team operations and the knowledge of what it takes to win, but visually at least they are again looking very strong on track. Both the RB18 and the W13 are rotating through corner entry so fast and so much more stable than any of the other cars.

Red Bull also appears to have held its cards closer to its chest, by leaving it until late in the final afternoon before fitting the C4s for a short performance run for Sergio Perez.

His 1m19.556s came in 0.418s slower than Lewis Hamilton’s test-best, and behind Russell’s effort on the C5s at the end of the morning session during the flurry of fast times the red flags interrupted, but this must be viewed in the context the slightly harder compound difference (and the C2 and C3 tyres were operating best in the cool, for Barcelona, conditions this week) and the sense that both teams were carrying a decent amount of fuel.

“We will consolidate some things that we have learnt here before Bahrain,” said Red Bull head of race engineering, Guillaume Rocquelin. “But it is more considerate than a big step.”

That is an interesting note to strike. The Red Bull design does appear to be rather more complex than the Mercedes – especially around the sidepods, but also considering the push-rod, pull-rod differences across the RB18’s rear and front suspensions.

There is a lesson from 2019 that is worth remembering – when Mercedes returned for a second test at Barcelona with essentially a different car, such was the development progress added to the early design that it had produced for the opening running.

Such a drastic change would inevitably be more difficult in the cost cap era, but nothing can be ruled out in terms of either of these super-teams arriving in Bahrain with something different.

Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes W13

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images

At Mercedes, Hamilton explained that it “definitely had some obstacles to overcome”, but nothing that impacted its reliability, as it finished second on 393 laps. The seven-time world champion conducted a race run on the final afternoon, with times that did bounce around as he went through the compounds from C4-C2 – in what Mercedes called a “tyre sweep”.

But the most notable aspect of this run was Hamilton repeatedly locking his left-front wheel at the Turn 5 downhill left as the stints edged towards their conclusion. Verstappen was having a similar issue on the opening morning at the same corner, which suggests, somewhat unsurprisingly at this stage, finding a handling sweetspot is tricky with these machines.

And this is the kicker. Everything completed in Spain – the flying laps, the long runs – it all must be considered within the porpoising problem that has enthralled the paddock this week.

In testing, cars can be arranged to set competitive times with set-ups that may not be legal during race weekends – but reengineering back to a point where they are fast and compliant is the goal

On the final afternoon, the Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari were all bouncing wildly approaching the Turn 1 braking zone – with Sainz’s car doing so most dramatically.

In testing, cars can be arranged to set competitive times with set-ups that may not be legal during race weekends – but reengineering back to a point where they are fast and compliant is the goal. That’s not to suggest anything untoward was going on this week, but it reinforces how much time there is to find for the teams that solve the challenge best and fastest.

As Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto put it, “the ones that will get there sooner will have an advantage at the start of the season”.

Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images