Mercedes Chief Technical Officer James Allison made a worrying prediction for 2022, saying that not everyone will nail the new regulations.
2022 will see new regulations introduced into the sport. There will be changes made to the aerodynamic rules, meaning cars will be able to do wheel-to-wheel-racing and overtaking more often and with greater ease.
As a result, it was predicted that there would be very intense and close racing in the upcoming season. The midfield and the rear end will be able to take the fight to the top teams, at least on paper.
However, Allison made a worrying prediction for 2022, saying that there will be a team or two who completely mess up the regulations and their scope.
“I would imagine, given that the cars are so new and so different, that one or two cars on the grid will have got it really badly wrong, and that they will have a terribly painful year,” Allison said, as quoted by Motorsportweek.
“I would imagine that all of us to some degree will have left things on the table that we just didn’t anticipate. We will look at other cars and think ’oh, why didn’t we think of that?’”
Damage control
“And then we’ll be scrambling around to try and get that idea onto our car as fast as possible so that we can claw our way from whatever position we land in that first race forwards or if we’re lucky enough to be in front, to keep the attacking wolves behind us,” he explained.
“It’s going to be quite a rush and definitely something that’s going to keep us all from having too much sleep for the whole of the season.”
Read more: Brawn reveals F1 teams’ reaction to 2022 regulations – “There were moans and groans”