F1 team chiefs discuss about if the rules and regulations changes for 2022 has worked for them so far in terms of racing and competition.
With the 2022 F1 season close to its end, teams have had enough data and sample to understand if the rules and regulation changes have worked in what it was supposed to do. While the order hasn’t shuffled on the face of it seeing Red Bull, Ferrari and Mercedes on top, the midfield has become a bit closer to spice up the championship.
The racing has become closer a bit as well, especially in terms of following cars which has allowed for better competition between two drivers. The season has seen some solid back and forth between two drivers and that too at the front of the field.
Here’s what some of the F1 team chiefs has said about the changes:
Pierre Wache (Red Bull): “You don’t think in this way in our world. We try to optimise and maximise the performance of what perimeter you have, I will say. Looks like, for yourself, I don’t know, is more a question for you. You know, in terms of spectacle, do you see a better race? For us? It looks a little bit better than last year in terms of performance, relative to the others. These are challenging rules. I think, at the moment, it looks better than what I expected, to be honest, in terms of following it as a car and after recording that, the rest is a relative.”
Andrew Shovlin (Mercedes): “The following is a little bit easier. There’s some circuits where, historically, you had very little overtaking, like Budapest. And the race there was a bit more interesting. You’ve also got the effect that, when you bring in new rules, and when they’re completely new, like this set, it does sort of reset the competitive order. We haven’t quite got the close racing now: it looks like Red Bull have emerged as a clear front- runner. So, the races are a bit more predictable than they were, perhaps at the back end of last year. But it’s a small step in the right direction and an awful lot of change to get there. And maybe the big one that we’d hoped for, that I don’t think we’ve seen, is the field closing up. You know, it’s still a broadly similar order of teams front to back.”
Tom McCullough (Aston Martin): “I think these two gents have covered it pretty well. As Pierre was saying, as engineers, our job is to take a set of rules and try to make the car as fast as we can do within those rules. The rules have posed some bigger challenges than we all expected, especially at the start of the year. So, it’s been a fascinating year, it’s been a very interesting year. As Andrew was saying, you learn more when you have problems, you know, and, for sure, at the start of the year, a lot of teams up and down the pit lane, their cars didn’t perform as per their simulation tools, ourselves included in that, so it’s been really interesting from a technical perspective. But nothing really more to add to what the other two have said already.”
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