MADRID, 17 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Sakhir Circuit, in Bahrain, will be in charge of opening this weekend the 2022 season of the Formula 1 World Championship, a year that is presented with much expectation in terms of greater equality due to the change in regulations, with the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull) defending the title and with high hopes of seeing both Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Fernando Alonso (Alpine) ahead, with better options for the man from Madrid.
Just four months after the last traffic light of 2021 was turned on in Abu Dhabi in a ‘great circus’ that surely experienced its most interesting campaign in recent years and with a controversial closure, the Bahraini route will turn it on again this Sunday to start a new struggle that, for the moment, is uncertain due to the technical innovations that the teams have had to carry out to comply with regulations that seek to favor a show that seemed lost.
The last closure brought a tense and exciting ending between Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, with Red Bull overtaking the Mercedes on the last lap and after a safety car exit that harmed the Englishman. His team complained bitterly, but the decision was immovable and the Stevenage team was left without surpassing Michael Schumacher’s seven world titles.
Now, there will be new cards on the table to be dealt with the regulatory change that will come into force and that will have its first exam in the first of the 22 Grand Prix that the championship will consist of, one less than expected after the elimination of Russia, who has also lost his only driver on the grid, Nikita Mazepin, from whom Haas decided to disassociate himself.
The changes in the regulations that the organizers have introduced focus mainly on aerodynamics, with wider tires and modifications to the front and rear wings, and it now remains to be seen how they will affect the traditional order of recent years and if Mercedes and Red Bull they will see something disturbed their domain.
FERRARI ENCOURAGES SAINZ’S OPTIONS, ALONSO LOOKS MORE TO 2023
In this sense, who seems more prepared to animate the World Cup is Ferrari, which both rivals and experts see at a very high level after what was offered during pre-season tests in Montmeló (Barcelona) and Sakhir who, despite they ‘hide’ many things, they have served as a set-up for a first race where it will be possible to check with a little more certainty where each single-seater is.
This raises the hopes mainly of the Spaniard Carlos Sainz, who hopes to show his quality again in his second year as a Ferrari driver and with the experience accumulated last year where he even scratched perhaps above expectations.
In his seventh season in F-1, the man from Madrid has already been able to be competitive with several different cars and in the last five he has been in the ‘Top 10’ of the final classification. In 2021, in his debut with the ‘Scuderia’, he raised his level even more and not only did he sign four podiums (second in Monaco and third in Hungary, Sochi and Abu Dhabi) to finish fifth, but he also surpassed his teammate in the championship, the talented Charles Leclerc, who was two years ahead of him at Maranello.
The two have been very strong in the preseason with the ‘F1-75’ and they hope that their skill behind the wheel and a car that has been worked on with care and well in advance will return the image of the ‘Cavallino Prancing’ to the first line and trying to fight for a title that he hasn’t won since 2007 and for which he hasn’t fought for a long time.
Next to Sainz will be Fernando Alonso again, the oldest of the entire grid and who at 40 years old has an initially somewhat less ambitious goal. ‘The Plan’ of the Asturian, who on his return to F-1 last year managed to get on the podium in Qatar, was going through a transition season until the entry of the new regulations with which he is optimistic about what Alpine can do , although perhaps looking more towards 2023.
The two-time world champion believes that both he and his teammate Esteban Ocon, who surprised last year with his victory in Hungary, will have a better chance of being ahead and not needing so many external things to get on the podium. In his return, he scored points in 15 Grand Prix and finished in the ‘Top 10’ overall and as the best Alpine, but winning, something he hasn’t done since 2013, seems more complicated in the short term.
VERSTAPPEN STARTS AHEAD OF HAMILTON
In any case, the champion’s team, Red Bull, has also shown a lot of strength and reliability in what has been seen so far and it seems that they have once again succeeded in designing a single-seater that can take great advantage of it. Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman was fastest in the week’s Sakhir tests and will likely start as the favorite ahead of Mercedes. The German team has surprised with two somewhat different single-seaters between Barcelona and Bahrain and has not offered the usual performance, although Totto Wolff’s team usually has an ace up its sleeve and also has a Hamilton who will want revenge and who has a new partner in the figure of a George Russell who could squeeze him more than Valtteri Bottas.
At the moment, at Sakhir, Mercedes and Hamilton have won on their last three visits and that may balance things out somewhat with respect to Christian Horner’s hosts. Sainz has fifth place as the best result on the Bahraini track, where he was eighth last year, and Alonso, winner in 2005 and 2006 with Renault, and in 2010 with Ferrari, could not finish in 2021.