FLOYD ON F1: Hard to keep up with evolving cars of 2022

Personnel shuffles within F1 during the off season, plus promotions within the teams continue.

Two further moves are in the Alpine team when they recently announced the promotion of Pat Fry to the position of chief technical officer, with Matt Harman becoming director. Both will be responsible for the development of the car’s performance capability in a bid to reach the objectives of the Renault Group set by CEO Luca de Meo and Alpine CEO Laurent Rossi.

The objective – to fight for the championship within 100 races of Alpine’s arrival in F1 – is not an easy task. Despite finishing fifth in the 2021 Constructor’s Championship, the team was just 13 points ahead of Alpha Tauri and 120 points behind fourth place McLaren.

The French team has just announced that one of the world’s leading suppliers of water treatment systems, BWT, has become title partner from this season onwards. The team will now be known as BWT Alpine F1.

Most will remember BWT as the pink liveried Racing Point Team until it evolved into Aston Martin, with its livery changing to green. The pink will make a return as Alpine have confirmed pink will feature prominently in the teams branding. The Alpine 522’s livery at launch on Monday could be a major talking point.

Aston Martin chief Lawrence Stroll has announced a new long term major partnership for the F1 team, the Saudi Arabian Oil Company Aramco. That means the team probably has the longest name on the grid – Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One.

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Another major change for 2022 is a new title sponsor for the Red Bull F1 team. With Honda stepping back the logos of Oracle, the American technology company, now adorn the rear wing and sides of the RB18.

It appears most teams have announced all changes in staff and sponsors and we have already experienced a few new liveries during last week’s launches.

It is interesting to note that almost all the teams have stated the cars we saw at the recent launches are likely to be very different in appearance at the first race in Bahrain.

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner explained the expected changes to the cars, saying: “Because of new regulations it’s going to evolve very, very quickly.

“By the time we get to the first race the car is not going to look very much like this. The car is a prototype, basically at every race, it’s evolving.”

During the pizzazz of the launches a couple of the drivers raised an issue with the new design and it revolved around the new 18-inch tyres. But time in the simulators demonstrated a problem with visibility.

Max Verstappen said: “The biggest thing is actually the view from the cockpit with these bigger tyres. To hit an apex in some tight corners is more difficult.”

The sentiment was echoed by Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll. Basically, drivers cannot see the apex. It is strange to think all the new aerodynamic changes designed to provide easier overtaking has led to the cars becoming almost a ground effect package.

Arriving on the F1 scene in the late 1970s all teams employed the aerodynamic design, but it was ultimately deemed unsafe. The risk of the cars becoming “unstuck” from the track surface with disastrous consequences led to the FIA banning it in 1983.

But now, almost four decades later the new regulations have almost revived the ground effect, albeit in a different format. What a strange world we live in…

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