After France was the official winter break for the F1 2022 season and the teams went for a winter break taking some time out to relax and chill out and recharge their batteries for the second half. And sure it was the return was beautiful for Red-Bull and Mercedes but not for Ferrari.
Next in the line is the Singapore grand prix which came back to the calendar after a break of three years. The last Singapore GP was held back inn 2019 and was won by the then Ferrari, now Aston Martin driver, the four time world champion, Sebastian Vettel. The Return of Singapore was good start. The first session of free practice was topped by Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes and George Russel completed the top five to sandwich Verstappen, Leclerc and Perez who finished P2, P3 and P4 respectively.
The second and third practice sessions saw the Ferrari boys getting back up to speed as Carlos lead Charles, George, Max, and Lewis to the top five. The third one was lead by the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc. The Monegasque lead Max, the two Spaniards Carlos and Alonso with the Mexican minister of defence completing the top five. The third session was blessed by a little bit of sprinkles from above and it was a hint about the climate to be faced by the drivers in the upcoming race at Sunday. The pole position for singapore was taken by the Monegasque in the Ferrari leading the Red-Bull of Sergio Perez and Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton to the respective second and third spots of the podium.
Sunday, as predicted was soaked by rain and the drivers were forced to stay out of the car about one hour as the race got delayed by rain. But even after the rain said goodbye the conditions were not getting better during the formation lap and the start of the race. The track was still slippery during the start and got dry gradually as the race progressed. And as the race progressed, Perez made progress from P5 to P1 and won another street circuit on the calendar. The top five was lead by Perez, followed by Charles, Carlos, Lando, and Daniel. It was funny how both Mercedes had a bad race and both the McLarens finished on the top five.
Mercedes really lost their pace on the streets of Singapore as Lewis Hamilton was the only point finisher for them, finishing in P9. The other Mercedes man, George Russel trembled down the order and finished last at P14. It was not just Mercedes who had a bad day, Zhou, Albon, Latifi, the two Alpines of Alonso and Ocon and Yuki Tsunoda retired from the race, Albon crashed on the pirs and retired, Zhou and Latifi took each other out of the race and the two Alpines were forced to retire due to mechanical malfunctions.
Another race to be highlighted was the Japanese GP held at the Suzuka International Circuit. F1 returned to the Japanese soil after a break of almost three years, being the last race held was back in 2019. The drivers had a ‘warm’ welcome by the rain, who bid goodbye at Marina Bay Singapore paid a revisit at Suzuka and it seemed like it was pretty impressed by the track and the crowd because it stayed for the whole weekend. The first session of free practice was lead by the Alpine of Fernadno Alonso, the 40 year old young man showing that he still knows how to drive on wet track, it was raining which meant it was time for the mid-field and lower-midfield teams to shine and so they did. Alonso led Carlos, behind the two Spaniards was Leclerc, Esteban, and Magnusson.
The second session, Mercedes got back up to speed and it was the British pair who lead the session with Russel leading Hamilton away. Following the Mercedes pairing was the flying dutchman who was determined to win the race to secure his second title. Following him was the other RB18 of Perez, who was fighting for P2 in the championship. Kevin Magnusson in the Haas stayed consistent throughout the first two sessions as he maintained P5 in the second session, which was again soaked wet by rain.
By the third free practice session, the sky began to clear up which meant the track was getting dry. So the teams started switching tyers and the pace for the qualifying began to be set up. The third session saw intermediate compound, hard compound and some soft compounds as drivers started getting the taste of a dry track. The third session felt like back to normal as Verstappen took back the lead and led away Charles, Carlos, Perez and Esteban for the top five. The teams who were leading the first and second session trembled down the order as the cars got quicker.
Sunday was not actually so sunny, as rain was as excited as people to watch the Japanese GP. The race was soaked in rain and was therefore pretty dramatic as well. Max Verstappen, as usual came home to win the race which ended with some drama. Max has done what he wanted to do to win the drivers championship but it was quiet confusing at the end. But he was confirmed as the 2022 World Drivers Champion as a late penalty for Charles, for cutting the chicane while defending Perez for all his life. This penalty made Charles loose position which made Max the world champion of 2022.
Apart from the drama at the front row there were a bit of other drama too. Carlos and Alex had to retire from the race due to different crashes at the start of the race and both were unable to complete even the first lap, Nicholas Latifi finished P9 in the Williams, and the old rivals had the juice for another battle as, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel drag raced to the finish line, it was a mind blowing view to see the old rivals lock horns and go wheel to wheel again, and the cherry on the top was that this was Sebastian Vettels last Japanese GP as the four time world champion announced that he will be parting ways with formula one at the end of 2022 season. It was one shocking news, and to add more sadness, the eight time race winner Daniel Riccardo announced that he will be parting ways with McLaren at the end of the 2022 season.
And next one in the line is the penultimate race of the season, held at the historic circuit in the Brazilian soil, the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, better known as Circuit De Interlagos. It was a weekend where the German-British team showed some real strength after a comparatively terrific season. The first practice session was dominated by Perez, but for as for the qualifying session for the upcoming sprint race, it was Kevin Magnussen, in the Haas showing some real pace in the rain sprinkled qualifying session. Magnussen timed his qualifying lap perfectly well before the rain joined the party which took him to the pole position. As rain began to fall drivers were forced to swap to wets and intermediates which gave out slower lap times. Eight months after his shocking return, Kevin was able to take his maiden pole with his team, Haas, with the help from nature by giving him a dry-wet qualifying session.
But even Kevin knew that he is not capable of holding the whole grid behind him. As the sprint race got away George Russel in the Mercedes took the lead and won his first sprint race leading away Carlos and Lewis Hamilton to the podium. For the race George lead away Hamilton, Verstappen and Perez since Carlos had his penality in effect. The race pretty challenging for George Russel as he was constantly under pressure from Lewis. But George kept his head down and kept his nerves under him and went to take the win, his maiden win in Formula One at the Sao Paulo GP. Russel kept Hamilton at bay, as he maintained one second plus gap to Lewis so that Lewis cannot get DRS and take George off P1. The race was not just intense for Mercedes, because their rival team, Red-Bull too had some tensions building up.
Max Verstappen didn’t follow the team order when he was asked to swap cars and let Perez through so as for Perez to get P2 in the drivers championship, this brought up tension in the red-bull box because by letting perez through, Max had nothing to loose, he won his maiden world championship title thanks to Perez, and the second title thanks to Perez, even after all these Max was still selfish enough not to let Perez through so that Perez can finish on top of Leclerc at the championship. The top five at Brazil was the Mercedes pair with Russel leading Hamilton leading Carlos leading Leclerc and Alonso completing order. The race was not the best one for the two McLarens and Kevin as they retired due to various crashes. Kevin and Daniel crashed and took each other out in Lap one. Meanwhile Lando in the other McLaren made contact with Charles and was forced to retire eventually at lap 51.
The penultimate race was fun, and the finale was super fun. With Sebastian Vettel bidding farewell to the sport that made him who he is now after almost 2 decade long career, four consecutive world titles and one of the most dominant era in the history of the sport. The departure is something that is the eye watering occasions especially for the man who Sebastian is, more than just a racing driver. Also the last race gave some of the rookies a chance to taste the real f1 car on track as the teams had to give their rookie drivers one testing session to let them feel how it is to drive an f1 car. It was Liam Lawson, Robert Shwartzman, Logan Sargent, Pietro Fittipaldi, Pato O’Ward, Jack Doohan and Filipe Drugovich.
The second practice session was were the real times posted by the drivers. As always it was Max Verstappen who lead the way with the mercedes of George Russel hanging on to the second spot, leading Charles and Lewis Hamilton in the other Mercedes and Checo catching up the tail end to complete the top five. The third session was for the two bulls as they occupied the top two positions leading the Mercedes Duo and Lando Norris to P5 completing the top five. And with that the final practice session for 2022 season came to an end. The final qualifying session for Sebastian Vettel and the 2022 season had the same story to say. The Red-Bulls dominated the game, Max led Sergio, Charles, Carlos and Hamilton to the top five spots and Red-Bull had the front row locked out.
The grid went out on track for one last time in 2022 and the race was pretty dramatic as well, so called perfect ending for a boring chapter. The flying Dutchman sealed another victory to complete the most victories in a single season, 15, Charles finished second, heartbroken for loosing the title because of mainly human error and miscommunication, Perez disappointed for not finishing P2 in the championship thanks to the 22 world champion, Carlos happy enough to seal his maiden F1 win at Silverstone this time out and George happy to perform consistent and seal his maiden F1 victory one race before, at Sao Paulo with his dream team and his hero driver finishing just behind him. Honestly George was happy that he outscored Mr Hamilton!
It was not the season ender that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso wanted as they both were forced to retire along with the regular retiree Nicholas Latifi due to technical issues. Which means us fans couldn’t see that iconic triple donuts for one last time. But the good news was that Sebastian Vettel finished his last race on points, in P9. And had the opportunity to give the fans some donuts as they wanted. The Drivers world championship and constructors world championship went to Red-Bull as Max Verstappen sealed his second consecutive title with fifteen wins in hand. Charles who was hart broken finished second in the championship as well as the race, meanwhile a disappointed Perez had to be satisfied with the third place.
So coming to a solid conclusion, this season of formula one was not one of the entertaining seasons, especially after a title fight like last year it was just a boring season. The sad thing about this season was that Sebastian Vettel, one of the greatest drivers of the sport has bid goodbye to it and the other sad thing was that Mick Schumacher and Daniel Riccardo will be doing behind the scenes duty in the 2023 season which is currently going on. The 2022 season was pretty lame except for Haas F1 who had their first Pole position and one of their biggest points haul within the last few seasons.
It is a complete shame that both Daniel and Mick will be handling the reserve driver roles for Red-Bull Racing and Mercedes AMG F1, because both of them have the potential that should be used on track. If given a car better than that is lurking behind the grid they can perform better and that was proven the last season when Mick was given a car that was capable of competing with the midfield, he showed off his defending skills in Texas. Likewise Daniel Riccardo really struggled to extract the exact performance from the McLaren he was given. It is so sad to see them leaving.
Another point to be stressed on was how idiotic the team in red was. This year they had a really good car which was easily the best car on the grid. But both of the drivers struggled to get that performance from paper to the track thanks the exceptional communication and strategy management from the team. Major communication failures and mismanagement in strategy was the villain at many, many occasions. Added to this was the human errors made every now and then from the driver’s part. Monaco, France, and more to count includes many of the Ferrari blunders which cost them the world drivers and constructors championships last year. They could have easily took over both of the championships but it was not meant for them.
But it was a memorable season for the rookie of the year, Zhou Gyanyu, who scored his maiden points at the debut race at Bahrain. He had solid performance throughout the season except at Silverstone, an incident which he wish to forget as soon as possible. Also in this season, Hamilton lost the winning streak of atleast one victory every season he raced. George Russel in his maiden season for his dream team, showed that he can cope up and perform well under a world class team and was consistent enough that 95 percent of the races he finished, he was at the top five.
Some of the reserve drivers and rookies got their chances to take the F1 car out to the track, during different FP1 sessions, and get the feel, which will help them in doing the development of the cars in the coming years. Antonio Giovinazzi Drove for Haas F1 team and Nyc De Vries drove for Aston Martin F1 team. Apart from that Nyc made his F1 debut unofficially at the 2022 Italian GP at Monza. He replaced the sick Alex for Williams Racing, qualified P13 and finished P9, scoring his maiden points and also outscoring his teammate Nicholas Latifi. Also he replaced George at Mexico for the FP1 session after taking the seat of Lewis Hamilton for the first FP1 debut at France.
Other than Nyc, Jack Doohan replaced Ocon, Liam Lawson replaced Yuki Tsunoda at Alphatauri, Logan Sargent replaced Alex Albon and later was conformed that he will be replacing the outgoing Nicholas Latifi for the 2023 season. Pietro Fittipaldi replaced Kevin, Robert Shwartzman replaced Carlos in the Ferrari and Peter O’Ward replaced Lando Norris for the Free practice session. There are many more occasions that are to be highlighted, that happened throughout the 2022 season but for me I think these are the most important moments of the 2022 season. Hoping for a much more exciting 2023 season
