Written by María Fernanda Peña, Edited by Haneen Abbas
This year, with four races done and the Miami Grand Prix just round the corner, it is clear that this F1 season will be full of surprising moments and little twists and turns. With just 4 races, we’ve had various jaw-dropping moments which will certainly make every motorsport fan jump from their seats. With every race that passes more shocking things are coming our way and they are proving that all of our expectations and predictions might be wrong. In this article, I´ll cover more of these staggering events.
Mercedes is a midfielder & George Russell beating Lewis Hamilton
After last year´s dramatic finish to the season, with Lewis Hamilton losing the championship on the final lap, everyone supposed Mercedes and Hamilton would be unbeatable this year. However, the opposite has happened, given the underwhelming results of both the car and Hamilton himself. With the four races that have passed, the car has shown that it´ll be impossible to win a championship with it, even having Toto Wolff stating that right now their championship dreams are “unrealistic”. As it stands, the team is in 3rd place in the constructors´ championship; not bad but still not great for the standards set by Mercedes. However, this has been mostly achieved by George Russell’s consistency rather than Hamilton. This season hasn't been Hamilton’s best; he has only been on the podium once (in Bahrain) and in the other races he has finished P10, P4, and P13. This compared to Russell’s results is pretty bad, taking into consideration that George has finished P4, P5, P3, and P4 and is currently sitting in P4; while Lewis is P7 in the drivers’ championship. So, right now it could be said that Mercedes and Hamilton are at their worst moment since they joined F1. However, they might still have the chance to turn things around, considering that there have only been 4 races of the 23 on the calendar and also given they are the reigning champions for a reason.
Albon's performance & Williams scores points
After last year´s P8 finish in the constructors’ championship, things weren't looking exciting for Williams and as soon as the pre-season testing started, we knew the car wouldn't be competitive. Additionally, they had the evident trouble of introducing Alex Albon to the team as George Russell left for Mercedes. However, Jost Capito’s decision of hiring Albon as a driver for the team has worked, given the results despite the lack of pace the car has shown. Many people in the industry weren't quite sure it was the best decision to sign on Albon but he has proven many wrong. With just four races in the season and arguably the worst car on the grid, Albon has scored a P13, P10, P11 (having DNF´d in Saudi) showing a lot of consistency and completely destroying his teammate Nicholas Latifi. All of this is considering that Albon had to be Red Bull´s reserve driver last year. So, although the P10 of the team is in big part due to Albon´s tire handling, it is still surprising that they were able to score points this early on. Surely with such a fantastic driver, we´ll get to see more points for Williams just as George did last year. And maybe, in the future, the team will be able to build a championship-contending car so that Albon can show more of what he is capable of.
McLaren's podium
Mclaren’s poor performance in the first race of the season comes as a surprise however, the team’s circumstances have completely changed given last weekend's Grand Prix at Imola, where Lando Norris was able to score a podium. This was a thrilling surprise for the team as well as the fans. No one really expected to see progress this fast and even Lando mentioned in an interview that he thought he might not be able to score any podiums this season. Still, this is a fabulous piece of news for everyone and this only means that things will probably start getting better, and just maybe Norris´s first win is on the horizon.
Stay tuned to see even more surprises of the 2022 season!