1996 Formula One World Champion Damon Hill admitted that he is interested to see what Scuderia Ferrari and his former team Williams will be able to achieve in the 2022 Formula 1 season, as he believes that both team have the possibility of performing strong in 2022.
Given the new rules and regulations which were scheduled to be introduced for the 2022 F1 championship, it is a well-known fact that both Ferrari and Williams decided to shift their focus on this year’s project from the early stages of last season in order to have a better chance of improving as much as possible for 2022.
The are high expectations from Scuderia Ferrari this season and the first impressions following the pre-season testing session at the Circuit de Catalunya seemed encouraging. Several paddock insiders as well as drivers and team bosses suggested that the Maranello team looked to be able to challenge Mercedes and Red Bull.
Lewis Hamilton also felt Ferrari will be strong, but Team Principal Mattia Binotto wanted to play down the suggestions, explaining that at this stage of pre-season testing it is way to early to talk about the possible values on track.
Damon Hill feels that given the new rules and technical regulations, every team will be closely monitoring each other’s ongoing developments and attempting to understand what rivals are doing after the first round of testing, especially if we consider that some 2022 F1 challengers look very different to others.
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“They will be going back and going, ‘They’ve done something different to their front wing – have we done the right thing or not? What are they doing?'” Damon Hill said for F1 Nation podcast – “So they will be doing a lot of analysing of each other in this period, and there’ll be questions. The designers will inevitably be wondering whether they’ve gone down a blind alley or whether they’ve gone up the right alley.”
The former Formula 1 driver was particularly curious about how Scuderia Ferrari will perform this year: “The side pods and the bodywork [on the Ferrari] are so unique, it’s phenomenal. But I’ve heard one very experienced car designer, from a while ago, look at a Ferrari and go, ‘Hmm, that looks like it was designed by committee. The front end looks like it was going one way, and the back end looks like it was going somewhere else.’ So nobody really knows what’s going to work in the new regs, but there’s such a difference [across the teams].” – he continued.
Alongside Scuderia Ferrari, Damon Hill will also keep an eye out on his former team Williams, who he hopes will also be able to significantly improve:
“The Williams [car] is incredibly radical,” Hill explained – “It’s phenomenal, the packaging on that thing. Williams are a bit like Ferrari in [their situation]. Ferrari have had their… Their prancing horse was hobbled a bit when they had their problem with their power unit, and they were clipped back, and they’ve been in reset mode, as have Williams. So they’ve basically given up [2021]. Last year was like a wasted year, and they’ve been able to maybe devote more of these resources on the 2022 car. That’s maybe why they’re interesting. If Mercedes think that Ferrari are six months ahead, then you might see that the Mercedes and Red Bull have had to expend too much energy on fighting a championship last year. Let’s see what happens there.” – the former Williams driver concluded.
Next week, the Formula 1 teams will head to Bahrain for the second pre-season testing session, ahead of the first round of the new season.
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