re: 2022 Formula 1 Season Thread

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It might just be a red herring anyway. I do think teams went through tires much faster than they anticipated. Which may take a few weeks to figure out and even longer to solve since tire selections are done weeks in advance.

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I found this really informative article and learned some interesting things:

www.racefans.net/2022/03/25/exclusive-the-changes-pirelli-saw-in-bahrain-which-promise-more-close-racing-in-2022/

First of all, I didn't realize the compounds are frozen for the year before the season starts, no tweaking. And they had to test the new tires using "test mules" instead of actual 2022 cars.

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"During the season, our product is frozen... We have to freeze the product, let’s say, November, December of the previous year – we cannot change it for one year."

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And then this:

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The biggest difference Pirelli discovered was the performance gap between the three compounds was far beyond what they expected following last year’s test. A difference of around half a second per lap was predicted.

“In Bahrain, it was more,” Isola explained. “It was one second between hard and medium, 1.2 between medium and soft. And also the level of degradation was higher than expected.”

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A difference between compounds of 1 second or more, along with increased degradation, is fantastic. This should lead to more alternate strategies and make the races more fun.

At Bahrain, one of the roughest circuits, they brought C1-C2-C3, the hardest set. At Jeddah, they are bringing C2-C3-C4, so C4 will be a new experience.