F1 2022 thread - see post 1 for rules

Toto and Christian should both get race bans for 2022 for their carry on and trying to influence the safety car procedures.

The new rules are an almost complete reset, except for the engine where Mercedes are likely to retain their current large advantage. It will be interesting to see how they cope with the way they've been humbled this year and whether they can produce another dominant car or not. If they are at the front the dynamic between the drivers could be spicy because I expect Russell to be a stronger driver than Rosberg and we know how that went.

Ferrari really should be competing for the title next year, they've been throwing everything at next years car while they were out of the title hunt. Alpine too, it's time to finally put in the performances of a full constructor rather than a member of the midfield pack, they've been languishing for far too long and there's no longer any excuses. Both teams have top class drivers too in Sainz and of course Alonso. How amazing would one last title challenge from Fernando be?

Having thrown everything at this season and with Honda withdrawing, it would take a mighty effort for Red Bull to stay at the top but with the talent of the guy they have driving the car anything is possible. It will be great to finally see number 1 back on the grid. Alpha Tauri will be similarly impacted by the Honda transition so they might be more likely to re-assume their traditional lower-midfield position than the sort of results Gasly's been pulling off this year.

Williams have more comfortable finances since Dorilton came in, and the same with Haas and Uralkali, so you'd expect them to move forward but probably not dramatically. I'd love to see Mick Schumacher at least have a chance to show what he's capable of in the midfield. Sauber are the team I forsee being dead last, they've little momentum going for them and a weaker driver line up for next season too.

I worry McLaren may be facing difficult times because, although their on track performances have been solid this year, their finances haven't been and they've been selling the family jewels to keep things running. We've seen them really drop off in the development race.

The last team to mention is Aston Martin. They've had a poor year but historically they are the team who've always given the absolute best performance per dollar spent, so you'd expect them to do well with the influx of Stroll money and the cost cap rules should suit them too. I expect it will be more of a transition year for them though as their new factory isn't completed until late in 2022, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's more of the same for them.

I thought engine regs are pretty much frozen now, and Honda are still making next year's engine even if not badged as such.

All a bit of a guessing game as nobody knows what the 2022 cars will be like but I'd expect Mercedes to have the best car again.

Post season testing tomorrow and Wednesday with the new 2022 tyres. Also will see Bottas and Guanyu Zhou in the Alfa and Russel in the Merc.

There's no change to the engine regulations is there? Basically they could just slap this engine into next year's car.

It's a car from a previous season that's had its suspension, brakes and wheel hubs modified to take the new 18" tyres for next season for the purpose of testing them. Those cars weren't designed for those tyres so have to be modified to take them.

This is a really good watch and he has other videos that are really good too.

The ceremony was cancelled last year due to Covid I think and rescheduled for today.

Yes I think he was not officially knighted untill today. So next year he will be even more obnoxious to listen too.

Just on the 3rd point: Hamilton won the drivers championship in 2008 while Ferrari won the constructors.

Can almost guarantee he won't refer to himself as Sir Lewis or anything like that. But can equally guarantee that Sky will refer to him like that, so that'll suck.

I see that we have formal confirmation that Max will be number 1 (I know we knew that all along) next season too: https://www.planetf1.com/news/confirmed-max-verstappen-number-1/

Made me wonder - if they went with the old style form where each team were issued with 2 numbers, who would each team assign? I assume it'd be Max 1, Checo 2, Hamilton 3, Russell 4, Leclerc 5, Sainz 6 (probably? - Sainz did finish higher, but assume Ferrari prefer Leclerc), Norris 7, Ricciardo 8, Alonso 9, Ocon 10 (or vice-versa?), Gasly 11, Tsunoda 12, Vettel 14, Stroll 15 (or would his dad make Stroll their number 1?), Latifi 16, Albon 17, Bottas 18, Zhou 19, Schumacher 20, Mazepin 21 (or would his dad make him their number 1?)