2022 Formula One World Championship


The 2022 FIA Formula One World Championship was a motor racing championship for Formula One cars, which was the 73rd running of the Formula One World Championship. It is recognised by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the governing body of international motorsport, as the highest class of competition for open-wheel racing cars. The championship was contested over twenty-two, which were held around the world, and ended earlier than in recent years to avoid overlapping with the FIFA World Cup.
Drivers and teams competed for the titles of World Drivers' Champion and World Constructors' Champion, respectively. The 2022 championship saw the introduction of significant changes to the sport's technical regulations with ground effect aerodynamics reintroduced on Formula One cars for the first time since 1982. These changes had been intended to be introduced in, but were delayed until 2022 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Max Verstappen, who was the reigning Drivers' Champion, claimed his second title at the Japanese Grand Prix, while his team, Red Bull Racing, won their fifth World Constructor Championship at the following United States Grand Prix, their first since, becoming the first team other than Mercedes to do so in the turbo-hybrid era. Defending Constructors' Champions Mercedes fell to a distant third, only winning a single race in São Paulo after struggling to adapt to the new regulations.
This was the final season for four-time World Champion Sebastian Vettel. Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton endured a difficult season with Mercedes, securing neither a pole position nor a Grand Prix win for the first time in his Formula One career since it began in.

Entries

All teams competed with tyres supplied by Pirelli. Each team was required to enter at least two drivers, one for each of the two mandatory cars.

Free practice drivers

Throughout the season, each team had to field a driver in one of the first two free practice sessions who had not competed in more than two races, on two occasions, once for each car. The following drivers were entered at selected events to drive in free practice:

Team changes

initially stated that they would not supply power units beyond. The company had provided power units to Scuderia AlphaTauri since and to Red Bull Racing since. Initially, Red Bull Racing planned to take over Honda's engine programme and manage it in-house, under a new division called Red Bull Powertrains. The decision was made after lobbying the other nine teams to negotiate an engine development freeze until 2025. Red Bull Racing acknowledged that they would have left the championship if the engine development freeze had not been agreed to as they could not develop a brand new engine, and both Red Bull Racing and Renault were unwilling to resume their former partnership. Honda later agreed to continue supplying Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri for with engines for this season, which were rebadged to Red Bull Powertrains. In addition to the assembly and maintenance of the engines, Honda continued to provide Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri with technical and operational oversight during race weekends.

Driver changes

retired following the conclusion of the 2021 championship; Räikkönen won 21 races, and the 2007 World Drivers' Championship across a 19-season Formula career. Räikkönen's seat at Alfa Romeo was filled by fellow countryman Valtteri Bottas, who left Mercedes after 5 seasons. George Russell replaced Bottas, vacating the seat that he had held for the past 3 seasons at Williams. Russell was replaced by former Red Bull Racing driver Alex Albon after competing in the 2021 Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters series.
Zhou Guanyu, who finished third in the 2021 Formula 2 Championship, joined Alfa Romeo, in place of Antonio Giovinazzi, who had been at the team since 2019. Zhou became the first Chinese driver to compete in Formula One.
Nikita Mazepin was originally contracted to compete for Haas, as part of a multi-year contract that started in 2021. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resultant cancellation of Uralkali's title sponsorship of Haas, his contract was terminated. He was replaced by Kevin Magnussen, who had last competed in with the same team.

Mid-season changes

Ahead of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel tested positive for coronavirus. He was replaced at the event, and the subsequent Saudi Arabian Grand Prix by Aston Martin by reserve driver Nico Hülkenberg, who last raced at the 2020 Eifel Grand Prix, driving for former team Racing Point.
During the Italian Grand Prix weekend, Alex Albon suffered from appendicitis. He was replaced at Williams by the Mercedes reserve driver 2020–21 Formula E and 2019 Formula 2 Champion Nyck de Vries, who made his Formula One race debut.

Calendar

The 2022 calendar consisted of twenty-two events. The Emilia Romagna, Austrian and São Paulo Grands Prix featured the sprint format.

Calendar expansion and changes

  • The Australian, Canadian, Japanese, and Singapore returned to the calendar after a two-season absence due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The Miami Grand Prix made its debut, with the race taking place at the Miami International Autodrome in Miami Gardens, Florida.
  • The Portuguese, Styrian, and Turkish were not included in the list of 2022 races. These were specifically added to the calendar in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure that as many races as possible could be held.
  • The Qatar Grand Prix, which made its debut in the 2021 championship at the Lusail International Circuit, was not present on the 2022 calendar. The Grand Prix returned in after a one-year hiatus during which the country focused on hosting the FIFA World Cup, and remained in Lusail despite originally being planned to move to a new purpose-built circuit.
  • The Chinese Grand Prix was under contract to feature on the 2022 calendar, but it was not included due to Chinese travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The Russian Grand Prix, which was scheduled to take place on 25 September as the 17th round of the championship, was initially suspended from the calendar in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, before being ultimately cancelled. The Grand Prix was due to be replaced, but that plan was later scrapped.

    Regulation changes

Race direction

, who had served as race director since the death of Charlie Whiting in, was removed from the role of race director after an inquiry into the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. As part of a restructuring of race control, Masi was replaced by former DTM race director Niels Wittich and World Endurance Championship race director Eduardo Freitas. The pair assumed the role on an alternating basis. Herbie Blash, Whiting's former deputy, was appointed as permanent senior advisor to the race director.
The FIA also introduced a new virtual race control system, much like the video assistant referee in football, as well as a ban on team communications that lobby race officials. Radio between teams and FIA officials also is no longer broadcast on television in order to protect race officials. Unlapping procedures were reassessed by the Formula One Sporting Advisory Committee following the controversy of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix and presented prior to the start of the season.
Prior to the United States Grand Prix, the FIA abandoned the idea of rotating race directors, leaving Niels Wittich as the sole serving race director for the final four rounds of the championship. The rotation policy was not met with favourable reviews from drivers, as well as being in response to criticism of Eduardo Freitas's performance as race director at the Japanese Grand Prix.

Technical regulations

The 2022 World Championship saw an overhaul of the technical regulations. These changes had been planned for introduction in, with teams developing their cars throughout. The introduction of the regulations was delayed until the 2022 championship in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Once the delay was announced, teams were banned from carrying out any development of their 2022 cars during the 2020 calendar year. Prior to the season, the FIA said it anticipated that the car performance deficit between the fastest and slowest teams on the grid would be cut by half when compared to 2021.
Drivers were consulted on developing the new technical regulations, that were deliberately written to be restrictive so as to prevent teams from developing radical designs that limited the ability of drivers to overtake. The FIA created a specialist Working Group, or committee of engineers, tasked with identifying and closing loopholes in the regulations before their publication. The elimination of loopholes will, in theory, stop one team from having a dominant car, and in turn allow for closer competition throughout the field while improving the aesthetics of the cars. This philosophy was a major aim of the new regulations. Red Bull car designer Adrian Newey noted that the regulation changes were the most significant in Formula One since the season.

Aerodynamics and bodywork

The technical regulations reintroduced the use of ground effects for the first time since venturi tunnels under cars were banned in 1983. This coincides with a simplification of the bodywork, making the underside of the car the primary source of aerodynamic grip. This aims to reduce the turbulent air in the wake of the cars to allow drivers to follow each other more closely whilst still maintaining a similar level of downforce compared to previous years. Further changes to the aerodynamics are aimed at limiting the teams' ability to control airflow around the front wheels and further reduce the cars' aerodynamic wake. This includes the elimination of bargeboards, the complex aerodynamic devices that manipulate airflow around the body of the car. The front wing and endplates have been simplified, reducing the number and complexity of aerodynamic elements. The front wing must also directly connect to the nosecone, unlike pre-2022 designs where the wing could be connected to the nose via supports to create a space under the monocoque, thereby encouraging airflow under the car by way of the wing's larger surface area and the nose's increased height. The rear wings are wider and mounted higher than in previous years, with additional restrictions in place to limit the constructors' ability to use a car's exhaust gases to generate downforce. Figures released by the Working Group revealed that where a -specification car following another car had just 55% of its normal levels of downforce available, a 2022-specification car following another car would have up to 86% of its normal levels of downforce.
Teams have been further restricted in the number of aerodynamic upgrades they can introduce to the car, both over the course of a race weekend and over the course of the championship. These rules were introduced to further cut the costs of competing. Following the decision to delay the 2021 regulations to 2022, aerodynamic development of the cars was banned from 28 March 2020 to the end of 2020.
In 2021, the championship introduced a sliding scale system to regulate aerodynamic testing. Under this system, the least successful teams in the previous year's World Constructors' Championship standings would be given additional time for aerodynamic testing. Conversely, the most successful teams would be given less time to complete testing. The system was trialled in 2021 with the results used to create a more formal, structured and steeper model for the 2022 championship.