2022 Spanish GP: Post Race Analysis

6 laps into the Spanish Grand Prix and it appeared like it was going to be a follow the leader, tire management race of pure boredom. So happy that was not the case at all. There was passing and defending across the whole field, the immense amount of different tire strategies held a lot of unknowns and kept us fascinated. All in all, a great Spanish GP.

Red Bull were being tipped as the best car in the race, and that might have been the case as they were strong all race with both cars. Verstappen of course winning despite a slight off track moment from a gust of wind. His stint on soft tires where he was 3 seconds faster Russell was pretty impressive. Of course the DRS issue which hurt him in quali hurt him again in the race. Will Red Bull's minor reliability issues continue to hurt their championship going forward? You have to feel bad for Perez. He drove a great race, was a team player start to finish. I think he earned the right to fight his teammate for the win. Despite Horner's comments about the temperatures and risks, I think their cars had the Mercedes covered enough to let them race. Especially in race 6 of 22.

Mercedes brought another update (budget hey?) and this one seems to have worked. The porpoising appears to be solved, and it absolutely unlocked a big chunk of the car's potential. Their quali pace may not have been very close, but their race pace was very very good. George Russell had a hard and fair fight with Verstappen. Exciting racing to say the least, and once the Merc is dialed in, I expect more of it. Another solid finish is vital to his championship, as if Mercedes returns to dominance, he may still have a shot. Lewis Hamilton had a great recovery drive. Earned 4th, but had to drop back because of some overheating. The incident with Magnussen was a racing incident, which happens. However, it was pretty appalling to hear Lewis wanting to quit after just a few laps despite always giving the "never give up" speech to the media.

Ferrari have to be a bit devastated. Most will assume that Leclerc had this race in the bag. Was in complete control, had the tire management and speed that gave him all options to cover any situation. Then some rotten bad luck erases an almost certain 25+ points. F1 can be a harsh sport. Sainz has to pretty much be embarrassed by his performance. Another mistake and hardly a come back drive. The car was clearly capable of dominating the race, yet he was on route to finish behind Hamilton, who came to back from 19th some 55+ seconds behind in a slower car. Had Leclerc stayed in the race, Sainz would have been 40+ seconds behind? Maybe a minute? Ferrari now has to be concerned with Mercedes as a very real threat in the WCC. Also Ferrari finally brought some updates. The buzz suggested it was going to be a huge update, and I think many were disappointed not to see more. But the floor upgrades have certainly helped.

Alfa Romeo had a very strong performance with Bottas. Sure the 2 stop strategy was not the best. Had they been on a 3 stop strategy, I think Bottas is in the same battle of 4th to 6th. The team, and Bottas can still be proud of their performance today. Unfortunate that Zhou suffered what appears to be a PU failure, though I think points would have been difficult for him, but who knows.

Alpine must have really focused their setup for the race. In qualifying they were very slow, yet it was a different car in the race. Ocon wasn't stunning, but 6th or 7th was surely the best the car was capable of. Alonso had a marvelous drive in front of his home crowd. After having such a great race car, will the team be able to turn it into a good qualifying car required for Monaco?

McLaren brought a pretty significant update that was not talked about all that much. Didn't seem to show much on the stop watch though. Lando Norris had a gutsy drive while being supposedly quite sick. 8th place is a decent result all things considering. Ricciardo again will walk out of the track with his tail between his legs... getting beat by his teammate who is far from 100%. Will 2022 be his last season in Formula 1?

AlphaTauri haven't appeared to develop their car much at all this season. The car is much slower than expected, and it isn't improving. Tsunoda had another good drive, points and flat out beat his teammate. That's a huge result for him. Gasly's miserable season continues and he simply needs to adapt to the car. A bad car is a bad car, but getting beat by the teammate that you destroyed just a year before, that's on Gasly and up to him to do better. Honestly it gives light to why he was booted out of Red Bull's big boy team. He is great in a car that suits him, but struggles to adapt to cars not to his liking.

Aston Martin were the talk of the weekend, bringing a huge update, effectively a B spec car, which we all known by know looks remarkably close to the Red Bull. It is fair for Red Bull to be suspicious as the car looks nearly identical to their own "B spec" aero update that was shown on the last test before the season opener. This suggests it is unlikely that Aston Martin can claim copying from pictures, as they claimed with the 2019 Mercedes. Supposedly AM is saying this car was in the wind tunnel in November, which raises the question how did they come up with a nearly identical design as Red Bull before seeing the Red Bull's design? Of course the stinky fish in the room is that several Red Bull employees moved over to Aston Martin during the off season. How can you not laugh if Lawrence Stroll once again tried to buy someone else's design and once again failed to make it work. He has turned that team into a joke. Unfortunately for Vettel and Stroll, the updates didn't give them a car capable of even battling for points.

Haas. After a double Q3 qualifying effort, they had to come into the race with some high hopes, but their performance has to rank second to last. It would seem their focused their setup heavily on qualifying, as they did not have any race pace at all. If that is true, that's a ridiculous decision as Barcelona is always a heavy tire wear circuit. Mick proved he didn't have the pace for points, and I think even if Magnussen didn't collide with Hamilton, he wouldn't have had the pace either.

Williams again was worse than everyone. It would appear they abandoned the hole in the sidepod idea they had in pre season completely. Their most effective update might have been scraping the paint off the car. I haven't heard anything from the team on why Albon was so slow, but maybe we need to give some credit to Latifi who had one of his better drives. Sadly for him, the car was painfully slow.

Driver of the Race: Lewis Hamilton. Despite his "let's quit" attitude early in the race, he came back and flew through the field. Easily one of the fastest cars, and managed his tires wonderfully given he drove back from 19th place.

 

@Bas

I thought Lewis was pretty tight in the corner and Magnussen pinched him more than necessary. I felt it was maybe 70/30 fault to Kevin, but a racing incident regardless. However it was done, Lewis did go from 55+ seconds behind to just a dozen or so seconds behind Russell who was fighting among the fastest guys all race. I thought that was pretty good.

My other choice for DOTR was Alonso. He was in battles all race and came from pit lane to points in a car that was good for maybe only 6 or 7th anyways.

I agree about Ric... Indy sounds like a good home and a good fit for him.

 

I think it's easy for F1 drivers to get a seat in Indy as it's huge marketing value. But it is absolutely not easy for an F1 driver to be successful in Indy car.

 

I think a lot of people expected a huge update that could visibly be seen. That was not the case. The front wing, nose, sidepods, beam wing, etc all remained the same. A floor update has been in the works for some time and while it seems to have worked, its visually doesn't feel like a huge update, even if it is. I think this expectation could be from how other teams have brought enormous updates. Like Mercedes and Red Bull in testing, and Aston Martin in Barcelona.