Has Formula 1’s brave new dawn been realised? On the evidence of 57 laps of the Bahrain Grand Prix, it remains unclear.
Plus, there was a certain irony that 2022 should begin exactly as last season had ended, with a late safety car, albeit without anywhere near the same fallout.
Huge technical changes have been introduced in order to improve overtaking but also to close the gap from the front of the grid to the back.
There were glimmers that Formula 1 has gone in the right direction with a thrilling trio of laps – from 17 to 19 – as race winner Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen battled it out for the lead.
But the reality was that the safety car and the late retirements of Verstappen and Sergio Perez helped to draw attention away from the fact that much of the race at the front of the field was a procession either side of that Leclerc-Verstappen three-lap tussle.
Mercedes’ new signing George Russell hardly gave the most ringing of endorsements as he said things “didn’t feel massively different from within” and the new Pirelli tyres had not offered a huge improvement with his “still sliding around”. He did, however, counter that Bahrain can prove a false indicator of reality with its bumpy surface.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Formula 1 managing director of motorsport, Ross Brawn (essentially the key figure in the technical regulations overhaul), was quick to hail it a success albeit with the caveat that it is a sample size of just one race.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he said. “But we see no negatives today.”
The key going forward is that, for the first time, the masterminds behind improving racing are now with the FIA rather than Formula 1 so have full access to every teams’ data. That will be pored over in the coming days and the ongoing quest will be to continue to improve the cars’ raceability.
Brawn pointed out that two or three teams had got their approach wrong with regards to the new regulations, clearly Aston Martin and Williams and potentially McLaren if they can’t right the wrongs of their Bahrain horror show.
Having Ferrari back at the front of the grid is a happy side effect of the sport’s facelift after some tough years struggling to keep pace with Mercedes and Red Bull.
Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali may well have been Ferrari’s former team principal but summed up the mood within the paddock when he said, “It’s no doubt that to see Ferrari back again competitive is very good for everyone.”
The Ferrari looked a good car from the moment it was unveiled on track and is both quick and reliable. It remains to be seen whether every track plays to its strengths quite in the way that Bahrain did.
For Red Bull, the Bahrain debrief will be painful after coming away with nothing to show for being in the top two all weekend. The fuel problem that brought the cars of Verstappen and Perez to a halt should be fixable enough, although the fear is it could be an issue again in Saudi Arabia.
And then comes the curious case of Mercedes, for whom the head scratching continues in earnest for another week.
The sense coming out of their garage in the aftermath of Bahrain is that they know what their issue is, it should be a relatively quick fix but for all their technical brilliance and financial clout they just can’t work out what that fix is.
And gone are the days when the big teams can throw money wholesale at the problem, meaning Mercedes will need to be clever to find solutions to close on Ferrari and Red Bull.
They were clearly the third quickest car in Bahrain and there is a sense of excitement that, when they do get to the bottom of their issues, they could yet have a very quick car such is their ultimate downforce, although uncertainty reigns over the Mercedes engine.
Toto Wolff rightly said there is so much for them to improve to launch a defence of the constructors’ championship while Russell perhaps best summed up the befuddlement of the team.
Asked when that fix might come, he said: “I really couldn’t tell you. We might try one thing and it works. It’s promising to see other cars had the issue and managed to solve it. We’re struggling to find that.”
Answers are unlikely to come in the space of a week but Saudi should at least shine some more light on whether this supposed golden era of racing and overtaking has materialised.
