F1 pre-season testing: Six big 2022 questions to be answered in Barcelona

After a winter dominated by controversy over the 2021 season finale at Abu Dhabi, a new era of Formula 1 racing finally gets underway on Wednesday as pre-testing begins in Barcelona.

The 2022 campaign kicks off with a preliminary group test as all ten teams head to the Circuit de Catalunya, fresh off the shortest off-season in F1 history.

Despite its peculiar billing as a mere ‘shakedown’, this is a pre-season test in all but name, with teams engaging in three days’ worth of running across Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Each squad will run one car in Barcelona, with drivers splitting their time in the cockpit with their respective team-mates.

This will be the first time the 2022 machinery will be driven in anger, following the enormous regulation which change came into effect over the winter and has seen every team forced to build their car from the ground up. The new regulations are designed to encourage harder racing and could see the grid order shaken up after a few seasons of stagnation.

Though some media will be able to attend the Barcelona test, the event will not be broadcast live, so fans will only be able to follow the action and glean information via photography and reports. That doesn’t meant that we won’t learn plenty, though, before the second formal test takes place in Bahrain on 10-12 March.

These are six big questions we could find out answers to from this week’s test.

Can cars really follow each other more closely?

The regulation change has primarily been devised in order to allow F1 cars to follow one another more closely.

The previous era’s machinery lost so much downforce in the dirty are of the car in front that following was difficult and overtaking was rendered almost impossible at some circuits on the calendar.

F1 is hoping that changes to aerodynamic rules will reduce the loss of downforce when following, allow drivers to race one another harder, and lead to more overtaking.

Cars will not be racing at Barcelona, of course, and teams will only run one car each so can’t deliberately test following themselves. But we should be given at least some indication from driver and team principal comments about whether the changes seem to be having an effect.

Are the lap times much slower than last season?

One of the consequences of the regulation changes is that cars are expected to be slower, at least by a small amount, over the course of a lap at the beginning of the new era.

The reason for that is that complicated, downforce-generating bargeboards have been outlawed, and front and rear wings have been simplified for the new era. That means that cars will have less downforce than they did before.

Last year’s pole lap at Barcelona was set by Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton with a 1:16:741, and while full telemetry data won’t be made available for the Barcelona test, some lap-time data will almost certainly emerge and allow fans an insight into the extent of the pace drop-off.

How big is the new tyre visibility problem?

As well as aerodynamic changes, the tyres used in F1 have also undergone a significant revamp for 2022.

The 13-inch wheels used in 2021 are gone and are being replaced by 18-inch Pirelli rubber. The change is designed to allow drivers to push harder for longer, meaning they are able to utilise the full pace of their cars more often in races.

An issue a number of drivers including Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, and Lance Stroll have remarked upon, however, is the reduced visibility from the cockpit the larger tyres are causing. Drivers already have a tough time spotting some apexes from their sitting position just above the tarmac, and the increased tyre size seems to have made things more difficult in simulator runs.

In Formula 2, which has run 18-inch tyres for a number of years, cones are sometimes used at some circuits to mark out apexes for drivers owing to poor visibility.

The first runs in Barcelona will be the first chance drivers have to set lap-time on the new tyres, and their comments on visibility will offer fans an insight into one of the biggest challenges of the new era.

Why has the Alfa Romeo not been launched yet?

Alfa Romeo will run their new C52 car in Barcelona despite the fact they haven’t formally launched it yet.

All nine other teams have presented their new machinery in a launch event of some sort, but the Swiss outfit are not due to do so until 29 February.

The peculiar choice of post-test date has led plenty to wonder whether the development of the car is behind schedule, but team principal Frédéric Vasseur has refuted those claims.

Still, it will be quite odd to see images of the C52 running alongside other cars without it being formally introduced to the public. Images of the car’s livery and aero package will show whether the team has been keeping anything particularly interesting under wraps.

What is really going with Red Bull’s aero package?

When Red Bull launched their new RB18, all they really showed off to fans was a stock F1 car with a Red Bull paintjob.

They chose to hide all of their car design choices from their rivals in an attempt to keep the aerodynamic direction they have taken a secret from from teams who may copy their ideas.

So, the Barcelona test will show us the ‘real’ RB18 for the first time, and show once and for all which design direction Red Bull have gone in. Will it feature wide side pods and a series of cooling vents like the Ferrari and Aston Martin, or more slimline features like the Mercedes and Williams?

Is the Alpine engine reliable?

Alpine’s new A522 was launched on Monday, complete with a striking new blue and pink livery owing to a title sponsorship agreement with Austrian firm BWT.

The team has completely revamped its engine for 2022 ahead of a powertrain freeze coming into effect until 2026, finally implementing the split-turbo design Mercedes introduced in 2014.

CEO Laurent Rossi says the team has prioritised performance over reliability with its new engine design, wanting to find speed immediately and work on durability over a longer period of time.

It is all well and good having a fast engine, of course, but if it cannot finish races regularly enough then the team’s championship standing will be compromised.

The Barcelona test will be the first time the new engine is put under any real strain, and how it fares will be a decent indication of its prospects for the season ahead.

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