Five key questions heading into F1’s first race of 2022

What will the Abu Dhabi report say? 

Last year’s controversial Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is set to re-emerge back into the spotlight on the eve of the 2022 opener, with the FIA expected to announce its “final decisions” on Friday March 18, the day track action gets underway in Bahrain. 

The decisions relating to the FIA’s inquiry will follow ratification by the World Motor Sport Council in Bahrain. 

Michael Masi was removed as F1 race director as part of a restructure after he failed to correctly apply the rules in a late Safety Car period that had a direct impact on the outcome of the race and world championship, with Max Verstappen beating Lewis Hamilton to clinch his maiden world title. 

Eduardo Freitas and Niels Wittich will alternate the position and be assisted by Herbie Blash, who was the deputy race director under former F1 race director Charlie Whiting. The FIA also confirmed the creation of a new virtual race control room, which will work in a similar way to VAR in football. 

Hamilton recently urged the FIA to make the report of its investigation into the events of last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix public to help fans better understand what happened. It remains to be seen how much the FIA will reveal.

Is Red Bull the team to beat? 

Red Bull’s upgraded RB18 car made an immediate impact on the final day in Bahrain as the team finally showed a glimpse of its potential, with Verstappen ending the three-day test comfortably quickest. 

Until the last day, Red Bull had gone largely under the radar across the two weeks of testing, focusing on racking up mileage rather than lap times, which are fairly irrelevant at this stage.

Following a pair of strong tests, there is a sense that Red Bull will certainly be among the favourites, if not the frontrunner, at this weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix. It has form in Sakhir after all, with Verstappen taking pole position and nearly winning last year’s event. 

The RB18 looks both stable and consistent and has run near-flawlessly from a reliability perspective, while lap times over both short and long runs appear competitive. 

While keen to downplay his pace and prospects, Verstappen will be quietly optimistic about starting his title defence on a positive note this weekend. 

Can Ferrari end its wait for a win? 

Ferrari also created a strong impression through both pre-season tests in Spain and Bahrain. 

Like Red Bull, Ferrari’s F1-75 looked extremely consistent and the lap times came fairly easy. Ferrari may well be the happiest team after pre-season testing and would likely have been tipped as the pre-race favourites had it not been for Red Bull’s late surge of pace on the final day. 

Both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz seemed confident in the car and were especially encouraged by how reliable the new Ferrari was. 

Yet Leclerc remains wary about Ferrari’s main rivals, saying: “I am pretty sure Red Bull and Mercedes will remain the teams to beat. We are working hard and it looks not bad for now but we have to keep working.

"Mercedes are hiding their gains massively. Red Bull also. They and McLaren are all teams that haven't shown their real performance yet. Neither did we show maximum performance but we don't know how much margin they have.”

Ferrari goes into the new campaign looking to win its first race since 2019 at a circuit it and Leclerc in particular has performed strongly at.  

Could it grab its first win at a season-opener since 2018?

Will Mercedes overcome its test struggles? 

Mercedes is adamant it is on the backfoot going into the new season after a difficult second test in Bahrain in which its drivers struggled to get on top of the W13 following the introduction of a radical sidepod upgrade. 

Hamilton declared on the final day that Mercedes will not be in a position to win races with the car in the state that it is currently. He later admitted it could take at least four races before the team fully grasps its 2022 challenger. 

While its rivals are suspicious that Mercedes is up to its usual tricks of playing down its chances before turning up and winning the first race (like last year), there are genuine signs that things are different this time around. 

Hamilton and new teammate George Russell have struggled to extract consistent pace out of the W13, which also appears to be suffering from more extreme porpoising compared to Mercedes’ main rivals Red Bull and Ferrari. 

Even AlphaTauri driver Pierre Gasly, who followed Hamilton for several laps on the final morning in Bahrain, said: "I think the conclusion is that Mercedes probably don’t look as good as they were in the past.” 

Speaking at the Expo 2020 event in Dubai on Monday, Hamilton revealed that several crucial video meetings were taking place this week to try to get on top of the problems. There have also been murmurs about Mercedes bringing a potential floor upgrade for the first race in a bid to solve its high-frequency bouncing.

It would be foolish at this stage to discount Mercedes. After all, if any team can turn things around in such a short space of time, the German manufacturer has proved it can on several occasions in the past.

Will the racing deliver? 

One of the main intentions of the 2022 F1 technical rules overhaul was to create closer wheel-to-wheel racing and more on-track action by reducing the amount of dirty air coming off the cars. 

After getting the first proper chance to follow behind a rival car to see if following had improved at Barcelona and Bahrain, the initial driver feedback was positive, suggesting F1 is on course to meet its target of producing closer, more entertaining racing. 

We even got examples of some racing action in Bahrain, with Alonso and Lance Stroll, Carlos Sainz and Verstappen, and Hamilton and Gasly each engaging in brilliant duels across each day of the second test. 

Verstappen reported that the new generation of cars no longer have moments of “uncontrollable” understeer or oversteer when following a rival, while Gasly admitted he was “surprised” he could fight with Hamilton for several laps. 

“It was entertaining,” The Frenchman added. “It was interesting also to follow and just to get some data and feeling following other cars. So I think it’s clearly better than last year, which makes me quite optimistic in terms of racing for the season.

"It was better, clearly. We kind of overtook each other a couple of times, stayed close to each other – and it was definitely an improvement, so I think racing should be quite fun this year.” 

F1’s first acid test of whether its new cars have achieved their aim will be seen this weekend.