Mid-Year Report Card: F1

OK, so it's not technically the middle of the F1 calendar yet, but it is the middle of the calendar year, so let's take a look at each team and see how things are going in 2022...

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For each team, let's take a look at their season so far, with their current standings in the drivers' (WDC) and constructors' (WCC) championships, their biggest (positive) surprise, their biggest disappointment, and one thing that absolutely must be improved across the second half of the season. Let's just say that some teams have some work to do in the second half of the year...

Mercedes

Current WCC Position: 3rd

Current WDC Position: 4th (RUS), 6th (HAM)

Biggest Surprise:

This has to be the performance of George Russell. I mean, he is the only person to finish in the top 5 at every race this year, but equally if not more impressive is his performance relative to Hamilton. OK, maybe Lewis has been less fortunate than George at times, but certainly it's hard to argue against the idea that Russell is at least a match for Lewis, and has at times beaten him. Perhaps the one silver lining (no pun intended) for the team is that without the pressure of a title fight, the chance of fireworks between teammates is much lower.

Biggest Disappointment:

The performance and characteristics of the W13. Not only is the W13 considerably slower than its predecessors relative to the competition, it is also extremely difficult to drive. Before the season, there were headlines like "this team doesn't make mistakes" and "some teams will have gotten their car designs very badly wrong" coming from Mercedes. In the words of Michael Scott, "Oh, how the turntables." Not only is the car much draggier than its predecessors and the competition, the car also has to run extremely low to the ground in order to be remotely competitive, which causes drivability problems. Yikes.

Must-See Improvements:

The team need to get their head screwed on when it comes to porpoising/bouncing/oscillations. The drivers have been the most vocal about the car being borderline unsafe to drive, and then when the FIA steps in to try to fix the issue, the team have complained. It's against their competitive interest to modify their car to be more stable, but it is against their own words to run it in such an uncomfortable state. Solving this is going to require either some incredible political savviness from Toto Wolff or some engineering breakthroughs. Either way the current path is not sustainable.

Mid-Season Grade: C-

Making the best of a bad situation, but they only have themselves to blame for that situation in the first place.

Red Bull

Current WCC Position: 1st

Current WDC Position: 1st (VER), 2nd (PER)

Biggest Surprise:

There are a couple of candidates here, but I'm going to go for the relative improvement of Sergio Perez. OK, he's still not as good as Verstappen, but really I don't think that's anything to be ashamed of. Red Bull don't need two Verstappens, they need Max and someone who can be right behind Max (or ahead, if the stars align, like in Monaco), which is what they now have. I think it says a lot that Verstappen, Perez, and Leclerc each have 2 DNFs, but Perez is still ahead of Leclerc in the championship. You could've gotten pretty long odds on that a few months ago.

Biggest Disappointment:

The car isn't exactly bulletproof. OK, neither is Ferrari's, but compared to 2021, when the team did not have any mechanical DNFs, they already have 4 and we are not even halfway through the season. Even as recently as Canada, we saw Perez grind to a halt after only about 10 laps, as the gearbox decided it was done changing gears. If the team can't get on top of these issues, then they can never really feel safe, even if they are at the top of the standings.

Must-See Improvements:

Unsurprisingly, it's just reliability that is a concern at the moment. If the team can fix this, it's hard to see anyone else winning either title.

Mid-Season Grade: A

Only thing stopping them from getting an A+ is the fact that the car does seem a bit fragile.

Ferrari

Current WCC Position: 2nd

Current WDC Position: 3rd (LEC), 5th (SAI)

Biggest Surprise:

They have finally built a good car. Admittedly, the car on paper is one that doesn't make a lot of sense; it bounces like crazy but is still fast, it has the best engine but is always down in the speed traps compared to its rivals, and it doesn't seem to have any kind of trick suspension or floor concepts, but who cares? It's fast. On Saturdays the car is very good, and on Sundays it's usually in the hunt for wins (if it makes it to the end).

Biggest Disappointment:

The drop-off of Carlos Sainz. In 2021, Sainz ran Leclerc close over the season and did end up scoring more points than him, even if Leclerc probably had the better season. But the point is that he was close enough to be within striking distance. In 2022, Sainz is often lacking 3-5 tenths to Leclerc over a single lap, and usually not much closer in the races. Canada may have been a breakthrough, but Leclerc wasn't there to give a direct comparison.

Must-See Improvements:

Just like Red Bull, the car needs to be reliable. Specifically, the engine needs to be more reliable. If you're taking a power unit grid penalty at race 9 of 22, then you are on course for two or even three more engine penalties for the rest of the year. It's hard to beat Red Bull when you start on the front row, but it's nearly impossible to do so if you are starting at the back.

Mid-Season Grade: B

The car is markedly better than its predecessors, but you can't help but feel another opportunity to win a title is just slipping through Ferrari's hands.

McLaren

Current WCC Position: 4th

Current WDC Position: 7th (NOR), 13th (RIC)

Biggest Surprise:

The team's ability to get itself out of it's Bahrain crisis mode. Let's not forget that only a few months ago, it looked like the apocalypse was inbound for Team Papaya. Flash forward to the present and the situation is much less dire (I'd hesitate to call it rosy, but it's certainly an improvement). The team is again in 4th place in the WCC, where they finished last year, and there is every chance that they can finish there again.

Biggest Disappointment:

The wild inconsistency of the MCL36 and the general lack of improvement relative to the frontrunners. Coming into 2022, this was supposed to be an opportunity for teams like McLaren to make a leap to the front of the pack. Instead, the MCL36 is not any more competitive compared to its predecessors, and if anything is a little worse. Not to mention that the performance of the car seems to swing wildly from outside podium contender (Imola, Australia) to also-ran status (Miami, Canada).

Must-See Improvements:

The car needs to desperately trim some drag, as others like Alpine and Aston Martin have done. The MCL35M was a beast on the straights, even if it lacked a little bit in slow corners. The MCL36 sometimes looks like it has a parachute attached to it, making it hard to overtake others and easily overtaken. Not the combo you want.

Mid-Season Grade: C

C is average, just like McLaren's season. Sure, it could have been worse, but I doubt many will remember 2022 when they talk about the history of success at McLaren.

Alpine

Current WCC Position: 5th

Current WDC Position: 9th (OCO), 10th (ALO)

Biggest Surprise:

The engine seems to more or less a match for their rivals, and is no longer a handicap for the team. For many years, the Renault engine has lacked the outright gusto to really compete at the sharp end. A wholesale redesign for 2022 has certainly closed the gap, even if it's not always the most reliable product out there. Honorable mention goes to the continually-impressive performances of Fernando Alonso, who is showing no sign of slowing down.

Biggest Disappointment:

The car is not any better than its predecessors. While the engine seems to have closed the gap, the Alpine chassis is still seemingly average when compared to the rest of the grid. It doesn't have any standout weaknesses, nor any key strengths that set it apart from the rest of the field (except for pretty decent aero efficiency, as the car is always fast on the straights). They didn't absolutely drop the ball, but didn't knock it out of the park with the A522 either.

Must-See Improvements:

Reliability and execution of races, really. Alpine hasn't actually had that many outright reliability failures in races (compared to say, Red Bull or Ferrari), but there always seems to be some kind of minor problem that costs at least one of their drivers a position or two. That doesn't sound like a lot, but if you are giving up two points at each race, that's over 40 points by season's end, and could be the difference between fourth and sixth in the WCC.

Mid-Season Grade: B

About what you would expect from F1's perennial top-of-the-midfield team, although perhaps marginally better than previous years thanks to the improved engine.

AlphaTauri

Current WCC Position: 6th

Current WDC Position: 11th (GAS), 15th (TSU)

Biggest Surprise:

The relative improvement of Yuki Tsunoda. OK, improving on 2021 probably wasn't that hard to do, but Yuki has been considerably closer to Gasly than the prior year. There has been a reduction in the stupid mistakes that littered his rookie season (Canada notwithstanding), and he is much closer on Saturdays than before. Has it been an absolutely transformative offseason? I don't think so, but admittedly there haven't been that many surprises down at AlphaTauri.

Biggest Disappointment:

The failure to maintain the upward momentum of the last three years. Ever since taking on Honda power in 2018, the team has been slowly getting more competitive, culminating in the AT02 of 2021, a car that often could qualify in the top 6. However, the AT03 doesn't have that same magic, and is often on the fringes of Q3 and even faces Q1 elimination at times. A large update in Imola did not bring any substantial gains relative to the front, although in recent races the team's pace has looked slightly better.

Must-See Improvements:

The team needs to desperately improve its strategy, as too many times we have seen the drivers caught out by poor conditions or confusing tire selection. In Imola, the cars were both eliminated in Q1, same in Canada. We also saw a colossal screw-up in Monaco which left Gasly qualifying down in 17th, when practice indicated that he could have troubled the top 6. Team boss Franz Tost desperately wants the team to finish in the top 5 in the WCC, but that is extremely unlikely given the team's tendency to shoot itself in the foot.

Mid-Season Grade: C+

Unfortunately, 2022 is looking like another solid but unspectacular season for the team from Faenza.

Aston Martin

Current WCC Position: 8th

Current WDC Position: 14th (VET), 18 (STR)

Biggest Surprise:

Sebastian Vettel is starting to look like Sebastian Vettel again. OK, the car is not good (more on that later), but over recent races it has become increasingly clear that Vettel has a better feeling with the car than Lance Stroll. He has begun to stretch his legs, and if the team can deliver the car he wants, he may be able to deliver after all, despite early races this season looking particularly bleak.

Biggest Disappointment:

The failure to make any progress relative to the front of the field. Despite the influx of sponsors and that precious Canadian cash, the team from Silverstone has fallen even further back from the frontrunners than they were in 2021. The car was initially porpoising so badly that it had to be run at an extremely undesirable ride height. This meant that the team often fought Williams for the wooden spoon. A significant (and coincidentally Red Bull-inspired) update from Barcelona appears to have pointed the team in the right direction.

Must-See Improvements:

The team needs to capitalize on the promise showed by the Spain upgrade. The car was given all-new internal packaging, sidepods, engine cover, and floor design, which significantly reduced the bouncing of the car while offering more scope for development. The team needs to make good headway with this new design in order to turn a borderline embarrassing season into a respectable one.

Mid-Season Grade: D

You'd expect better from a team with a history of giant-killing performances, especially now that they are flush with cash.

Williams

Current WCC Position: 10th

Current WDC Position: 17th (ALB), 21st (LAT)

Biggest Surprise:

Alex Albon has proved to be an effective replacement for George Russell. I'll admit it, I didn't think that "Albono" would be able to fill George Russell's shoes as the team leader at Williams, at least, not this quickly. While the car might be only marginally better than the FW43B (at least in race trim, not on Saturday), Albon has proved to be the talisman they need to keep the team motivated. And he has scooped up points when they were available, which is always a plus.

Biggest Disappointment:

OK, Latifi would be an easy shout here, but I'm going to go with the FW44 in general. Since the team's takeover by Dorilton Capital in 2020, there is no longer an immediate cash issue. The team also had the benefit of extra wind tunnel time as a result of the sliding-scale aerodynamic testing regulations in 2021. Despite this, the FW44 does not really seem to be an incredible improvement on its predecessors, and is still the slowest car on average. The excuses for poor performance have been eliminated one by one, but the poor performance remains.

Must-See Improvements:

Simply put, the car needs to be faster. The team seems to have decent strategy and decent pitstops, so executing the race is not their problem. But the car is simply too slow. There is allegedly a substantial update coming soon, and it's critical that this offers a lot of performance or else the team risks another year of being in the competitive doldrums. For a team with another year of maximum wind tunnel time, there's no excuses as to why they should underperform in 2023.

Mid-Season Grade: D

You can't give the team an F if they haven't gotten worse year-on-year, but surely this season so far can only be described as disappointing.

Alfa Romeo

Current WCC Position: 6th

Current WDC Position: 8th (BOT), 16th (ZHO)

Biggest Surprise:

The car is actually good! After years of competitive stagnation (I'd say from 2013 to 2021, where the team finished 8th or worse in every season), Sauber and Alfa Romeo have made something good in the C42. The car is always in the hunt for points, and on its day can even give the top three something to think about (Imola, Spain). The team is operating nearly at the budget cap, and has its foot fully on the accelerator.

Biggest Disappointment:

Unsurprisingly for a team with a Ferrari engine, it's reliability. The car was not exactly bulletproof in testing, as the team completed one of the fewest lap totals of anyone. The team has then suffered from some kind of reliability problem at nearly every race with either Bottas or Zhou usually missing at least one practice session and/or retiring from the race with technical problems. So far, we've had Bottas miss large portions of practice in Barain, Imola, Miami, Spain, and Monaco, while he has retired from the race in Saudi Arabia, adding to Zhou's retirements in Miami, Spain, and Baku. Surely engine penalties will be coming for the team, which is unfortunate but the rules are the same for everyone.

Must-See Improvements:

The team needs a clean weekend, and more than one of them. They had that in Canada, and voila! They finished 7th and 8th. I think this car can finish fourth in the WCC, but not if it keeps falling apart or the team has silly strategic or pitstop errors (like Zhou in Saudi or Bottas in Imola). The car is faster than the McLaren and needs to be more reliable than Alpine to take the fight to them.

Mid-Season Grade: A

Just like Red Bull, if the car could get to the finish more often, I'd give them an A+. But it doesn't, so I can't.

Haas

Current WCC Position: 9th

Current WDC Position: 12th (MAG), 19th (MSC)

Biggest Surprise:

Haas took a big risk in throwing away 2021 in the hopes that the 2022 car would be better, but thankfully for them it paid off. The VF-22 is a competent machine, even if it isn't exactly a world-beater. This has made it so Haas is no longer the laughing stock of the paddock, and has also worked wonders for the team morale. If the car was a bust, it would have been pretty easy for the team to walk away from the sport entirely.

Biggest Disappointment:

Mick. Oh dear. He's had the perilous experience of being both unlucky in races and also making unforced errors, which mean that each weekend he looks like he's on the ropes. He's not exactly gotten over his oft-overlooked rookie trait of crashing, and now that he has Magnussen alongside him, he can no longer justify it by obliterating his teammate in the races. Hopefully things will turn around for him, as he was on course for a good result in Canada before his Ferrari engine gave up.

Must-See Improvements:

The mid-season upgrade needs to deliver for Haas. Not because their car is remarkably slow, but because they haven't introduced any in-season updates since the infamously-flawed Barcelona update in 2019, that took the team in the wrong direction and the effect of which they are only now recovering from. Hopefully it will make the car more consistent, as the team's performance seems to swing wildly from race to race, despite the fact that they have more or less run the same car since February.

Mid-Season Grade: B

A vast improvement from 2020 and 2021, but you can't help but think that they could be higher than 9th in the championship given how good the car seems to be.

F1 in General

Biggest Surprise:

The 2022 regulations are generally a success. Are there teething issues? Yes. Is there still an over-reliance on DRS? Yes. But I think we can see that cars can follow closer than before, which puts more pressure on the leading driver to avoid a mistake, because the chasing pack is much closer. I had reasonable hopes that the changes would make it easier to follow and race based on the concept, but in F1 we all know that teams have a great history of twisting the rules to their own benefit.

Biggest Disappointment:

Ferrari and Mercedes have each, in their own way, robbed this season of an intriguing three-way fight for the championship. Of course, it was absolutely naïve to expect three teams to independently create equally-competitive cars in the first year of new regulations. So the fact that at least Red Bull and Ferrari are close is in and of itself a miracle. But if Mercedes managed to make a car that performs as well on the track as it does in the wind tunnel, then we would be having an absolutely epic season.

The gap between the front group and the rest (if we ignore Mercedes in no-man's land) is not that different to previous years, so hopefully in the coming years the grid will close up dramatically. But we will only know that in 18-24 months' time.

Must-See Improvements:

The sport needs to sort itself out with regards to the porpoising, bouncing, or whatever you want to call it. Because if the sport wants to be successful in a cost-cap era, it needs to be able to fairly and quickly maneuver around any unforeseen side effects of the regulations. And it needs to do so without the whole issue descending into a Mercedes-versus-Red Bull problem, which may be hard for many of the Orange Army and TeamLH faithful.

Mid-Season Grade: B

Usually a new set of regulations sets the competitive order back a few years, so for the teams to more or less pick up where they left off is a good sign for the new rules. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement.