Spanish Grand Prix 2022 Race Preview
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The Spanish GP shapes up to be another incredibly exciting and important race for the 2022 Formula One season. With Red Bull seemingly improving rapidly and a weirdly static Ferrari team doing little to quell the onslaught from the Bulls this race should tell us a lot about how the rest of the season will go.
Can Red Bull continue to push the envelope on route to a back-to-back drivers’ championship with Max?
Will Ferrari manage to take hold of the reigns of its car and return to its former glory?
Can Haas improve its latest results, or were hopes too high for the American team after early success?
Is Alex Albon already deserving of another top seat?
Find the answers to these questions and much more as we prepare for this weekend's exciting events in Spain.
Miami GP 2022 Review
At the Hirschhorn Herald, a race review will most often be a full article, due to fishing circumstances this week, however, it will only be a few paragraphs within our preview.
Before we get started examining this week's upcoming events, we need to examine what occurred in the last race of the season in Miami.
The Miami GP was an exciting maiden race for the new American venue. It promised close racing and the possibility of many overtakes, in my review, I believe it delivered solidly in these aspects. Was it the new greatest race on the schedule? No. Was it enjoyable as a viewer thanks to a late safety car? Absolutely. However, I believe without the safety car the race may have been a bit of a boring one, hopefully, the track can improve, and going off the racing line won’t be such a risk for the next race held in Miami. Overarchingly, this was an enjoyable race and one we at the Hirschhorn Herald will look forward to enjoying once again next year, hopefully in the grandstand with a full press pass. (We can dream, can’t we?)
The top dogs Ferrari and Red Bull did not disappoint in the slightest, with both closely racing each other throughout the weekend. Ferrari continued to show that it has an incredibly reliable car with both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc managing to get well acclimated to the track before the actual race day. Both of the Scuderia drivers managed to log laps in all of the free practice sessions available to the teams before the race on Sunday. On the other hand, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen struggled with a variety of issues that caused him to have very limited track time before both qualifying and the race. Sergio “Checo” Perez had to be relied upon heavily this weekend by the Bulls to share information about the track with the team.
The most important moment of the race for the two front-running teams this week was the start. Carlos Sainz managed to qualify in P2 for the race. This meant with a good start Carlos had the opportunity to give Charles Leclerc some much-needed breathing room away from the Red Bulls. Max Verstappen wasn’t interested in this scenario and made an impressive maneuver off the start to get past Carlos on the first turn of the race. (Click here to check out Max's overtake on Sainz).
This meant Charles would be tasked with fending off the faster on the straights Red Bulls on his own. Something that was an impossibility early in the race.
I think in hindsight Ferrari should have attempted to pit during the safety car on to soft tires. With the softer tires, I think Charles could’ve made easy work of the Red Bulls with much more worn tires. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20 and the Ferraris ended up with the short end of the stick on this race weekend.
The Russel and Hamilton drama appears to be slowly ramping up at Mercedes. Viewers heard a radio message towards the end of the race of an upset Hamilton criticizing the race strategy he was given that day. It didn’t make much sense considering the Russel strategy was a long-shot attempt at improving his position as a result of the difficulties he had during qualifying. Without the safety car, Russel would’ve had a very difficult time finishing as high as he did. Weird things going on at Mercedes.
The midfield fight was a bit disappointing in Miami. The Aston Martin of stroll proved to be an incredibly annoying and difficult car to overtake (possibly because the dude just has no honor when driving). An audio clip from the YouTube channel F1 Unfiltered highlighted these sentiments well (cry baby Lance radio messages). I’m not sure if Lance is delusional or truly believes he had a quick car, in my view the guy had no right to ever be up as high as P12. The Haas cars seemingly had the quicker pace the entirety of the race but simply were stuck behind the spoiled brat of a pay driver.
Speaking of Haas, while the on-paper results were abysmal the racing done by the two drivers was quite impressive throughout the weekend. Kevin Magnusson continues to drive with absolutely no fear like a bat out of hell. It’s fun to watch and he remains my favorite driver of the young season.
In our previous article, the Hirschhorn Herald was highly critical of Mick Schumacher’s performance throughout the season. With our tails between our legs, it is only right that we give a nod of approval to the young driver. He showed some fast pace and even bested Magnussen for a short amount of time. It all ended in a crash with Vettel but, overall, a very impressive performance, the best of his F1 career so far.
Spanish Grand Prix 2022 Preview
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will play host to this weekend’s events and promises some fantastic racing. The Spanish circuit is well known to be a driver favorite with a good mix of high and low-speed corners. With many drivers being quite experienced on the track due to it being a favorite spot for many teams' Winter testing programs. This differs heavily from the previous track in Miami which was completely new for every driver on the grid.
Can Red Bull continue to push the envelope on route to a back-to-back drivers’ championship with Max?
The Red Bull team’s blazingly quick upgrades and slight adjustments to the car have quickly pushed it to the forefront of the grid. It is difficult to say now which of the top dogs has the advantage between the Ferraris and the Red Bulls. It seems that both teams have pushed in opposite directions when building their cars. The Ferraris focused heavily on being quick through the corners, while Red Bull has focused heavily on its straight-line speed.
At this moment the Red Bulls are without a doubt faster than the Ferraris in straight-line speed. This is incredibly dangerous on tracks such as Miami which offered two very long straights that allowed the Red Bulls to remain close with the Ferraris and as we saw in Miami, get past them as well.
If you are a fan of the Scarlet Horses, you must be getting a bit worried about how quick and efficient the Red Bulls are becoming. If Red Bull can keep its car together and continue to pump out adjustments that make them quicker on each track, it may become very tough for Ferrari to continue its road back to glory. Hell yeah, I say, let's see a close battle this season.
Will Ferrari manage to take hold of the reigns of its car and return to its former glory?
A race finish for Sainz this weekend may realistically be one of the only shining moments for the Scuderia in Miami. Don’t get me wrong, Ferrari is quick, and they have two incredible drivers currently, but their lack of race pace is extremely concerning. In qualifying, the Ferrari stands above the Red Bull, but in the last few races, the pace of the Ferraris has simply not been enough. Red Bulls seem to get quicker on race day and the Ferraris are doing the opposite.
If I was Charles Leclerc, I would be pretty upset with Sainz’s performance regardless of his third-place finish. If Sainz had managed to get ahead of the Red Bulls at the start I believe we would have seen a Charles Leclerc victory to put him solidly ahead of Verstappen in the driver's championship. Instead, we see now that Verstappen is merely 19 points behind Charles. This is still a rather large deficit, but a single mistake could erase that deficit quickly.
Uncertain times lay ahead for the Ferraris who seem adamite on waiting until later in the season to bring in performance upgrades.
However, the fairy tale is set for this weekend. For the first time in his career, Sainz has been given a car that can compete for a race victory. Can the Spaniard put it all together this weekend and take his maiden victory at his home race? Let’s hope so, that would just be too cool to watch.
Can Haas improve its latest results, or were hopes too high for the American team after early success?
Overall, I think Haas had quite an impressive race weekend in Miami. The results were admittedly abysmal for the team with both Mick and Kevin ending up in the worst positions on the grid.
On the bright side, Mick Schumacher had the best race of his Formula One career, managing to perform some impressive overtakes on the other mid-field cars, including KMag. A good result was erased when Mick slammed the side of Vettel’s car on a very odd-looking crash, seems both drivers had a bit of a brain fart which resulted in disaster for both Aston Martin and Haas.
The Haas appeared to have solid pace, at least better than both Vettel and Stroll’s Aston Martins. Yet for a large chunk of the race both the Haas drivers found themselves struggling immensely to get ahead of Stroll. Circling back to Stroll, it is comical that he believed he was faster than both of the Haas cars and his dangerous maneuvers and battles with KMag resulted in disaster for the Haas car.
Haas has stated that they will continue to wait on upgrades to their car for a while longer. I believe this is a good strategy considering the car has shown that it has the pace to compete within the mid-field. This is coming from an article from Formula One which states that Gunter Steiner feels confident in the current car and is excited about a large upgrade package in the next 4-5 races.
I cannot wait to see what upgrades they can come up with. It's just too cool to see Haas perform well and I hope they continue to improve. Good constructors finish is exactly what this team needs to continue its rise.
Is Alex Albon already deserving of another top seat?
Alex Albon has already managed to bring a very finicky William’s car two points finishes in this young season. It truly cannot be understated how impressive this feat truly is. He is outperforming his teammate on a scale that is more like an F1 video game career mode driver with a low AI difficulty. It’s astounding to witness.
He seems to have built an incredible amount of confidence in his time away from F1 which is impressive, I feel like losing a seat would knock a driver off his horse rather than allow him to upgrade to a new stallion. If he can continue this dominance over his teammate and continue to push the Williams car he has been given to the absolute edge, then he is very deserving of a new and better seat as soon as next year. If I was McLaren, I would seriously consider looking at this impressive driver.
The Hirschhorn Herald wants to wish Alex continued success and we hope that Williams can start to provide him with a car that can truly show what he is capable of.
A short review of the rest (McLaren, Alpha Tauri, Alpine, Alfa Romeo)
McLaren has begun to slowly establish itself as a team that has the pace to be the best of the rest. Lando Norris continues to be an impressive driver in a car that seems to be much slower than the very top of the field. His crash at Miami was another weird one that I believe occurred because of the drivers being unfamiliar with the track layout. Both he and Gasly share blame for the crash that sent Lando out of the race this weekend.
Daniel Riccardo quite simply must turn it around and do it quickly. There is no way a storied team like McLaren can accept the string of shitty performances Daniel has been turning in at the end of the race weekends. Watch out Danny Ric, you are on the hot seat.
Alpha Tauri
I expected the Alpha Tauri of Gasly to be a much more effective car at the start of the year. Gasly has been with the team for a long time and is the top driver on the team. This led me to suspect he would have increased sway within the team to create a car that truly fits him as a racing driver. So far, we have not seen the effects of this sway. His results are fine, but he is not wowing nearly as much as he has in the past. It’s unfortunate because I truly believe Gasly is deserving of a much better seat than Alpha Tauri.
Yuki Tsunoda continues to show very small amounts of brilliance on occasion. It seems that he has a good early pace during the races but falls off very quickly when the rest of the field brings their tires up to temperature. Yuki will need to turn in some very impressive performances if he hopes to remain within the Red Bull racing family.
Alpine
Alpine is a team with a quick car, they could push for the best of the best title this year. It will require both Esteban and Alonso to continue driving out of their minds to maintain their current results. Beyond that, the Alpine team has not received a whole lot of coverage this season. I hope during this Spanish Grand Prix we get to watch these cars race a bit more and see what is making them so quick.
Alfa Romeo
Bottas has been the shining bright spot within the Alfa Romeo team. He has shown at every race this weekend the true pace of the car by getting every ounce of performance he can out of it. In Miami barring a late-race mishap, he would have finished within the top 5 of the races. That is incredibly impressive considering the team's resources and past performances.
Bottas highlights how many good drivers we have in Formula One at the moment. Bottas, Gasly, and Albon have shown amazing prowess in their mid to bottom-field cars and are all deserving of better teams. It's just over-saturated currently, not enough seats to go around for these great drivers.
In conclusion
This weekend promises another exciting race with tons of exciting storylines to watch. I cannot wait to see if Ferrari has the answer to the Red Bull problem in Spain. Can Sainz have the performance of his career and take his maiden victory at his home race?
The mid-field battle should remain interesting, will McLaren or Alpine begin to establish themselves as the best of the rest?
Overall, we are set for an exciting weekend. I hope you enjoy it as much as I will.
Author: Cole Hirschhorn
Sources: F1. “Haas to Forgo Spain Upgrades as Steiner Expects Major Updates in 'Four to Five Races': Formula 1®.” Formula 1, Formula 1, 17 May 2022, https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.haas-to-forgo-spain-upgrades-as-steiner-expects-major-updates-in-four-to.7IsKzv4z1QXyyFTMtjNNKH.html.