Allison warns: “One or two teams on the grid will really make a mistake”

The world of Formula 1 is surprisingly silent at the end of January. In 2021, at the same time, the teams were already broadcasting their first photos of their cars on social networks. Twelve months later, the work to finalize the 2022 cars takes up the entire schedule of the teams.

James Allison, Technical Director of Mercedes, took stock of the regulatory revolution desired by the sporting authorities this season. The Briton delivers a detailed and valuable analysis taking into account his experience in this universe.

“I have been in this sport for over 30 years and these technical changes dwarf anything I have seen before,” he says. In fact, the wheels go from 13 to 18 inches, while the aerodynamics are simplified to make it easier to follow the cars on the track. Ground effect will also make its return to F1. But that's not all.

« If I were to dig into Wikipedia and go through each season, there would be nothing that matches the change that comes with 2022! The rules established are not only enormous, the regulations are about twice as long as the previous ones, but they are almost entirely different. This meant we had to reinvent the car from the ground up.”

We are a long way from the technical stability of the 2019-21 period! “Everywhere you look, everything is completely new. Not in the sense of new parts, but new in the sense of a completely new philosophy, a completely different aerodynamic package, different brakes, different wheels, fundamentally different tires and even the engine. One of the things that is less affected by regulations in recent years, even there, the power unit has to be prepared so that it can be frozen for the next three years. »

This upheaval should cause the emergence of a new hierarchy in the peloton. The last time a regulatory turnaround shook the world of F1 was in 2014 with the domination of Mercedes thanks to its V6 turbo hybrid. Previously, Brawn GP benefited from the 2009 aero overhaul to fine Ferrari et McLaren.

This therefore means that some teams will miss the boat according to James Allison. “I imagine, given the cars are so new and so different, that one or two teams on the grid are going to really mess up. And they are going to have a terribly difficult year. I imagine we will all, to some extent, have left ideas hanging that we simply hadn't anticipated. And we'll look at other cars and think 'oh, why didn't we think of that?'"

Does the engineer anticipate the problems that would affect his team? In any case, Mercedes will present its W12 (more likely, its 2022 colors on a temporary chassis) on February 18.