After two rounds of the 2022 Formula 1 season, Mercedes is still the third force, behind Red Bull and Ferrari and the numbers show it. In Bahrain, they were 0.680 seconds off from pole position. By the time the safety car was deployed after 43 laps, Lewis Hamilton’s gap to leader Charles Leclerc had grown to 38.275 seconds, which is a deficit of 0.89 seconds per lap. At Jeddah, George Russell lost 0.904 to Sergio Perez’s best time in practice, while in the 30 laps from the safety car period to the checkered flag, George Russell’s delta to the winner was 32.732 seconds. That’s 1.09 seconds per lap, according to German automobile magazine Auto Motor und Sport.
Converted per kilometer, the Mercedes car lost between 0.125 and 0.146 seconds on Saturday and 0.164 and 0.176 seconds on Sunday. In Jeddah, the Silver Arrows showed weakness in two areas: on the straights, the Mercedes were up to eleven km/h slower than the Red Bull. In corners 5 to 9, the Ferrari F1-75 cars were 15 to 20 km/h ahead. The speeds in these corners are between 190 and 260 km/h. On the other hand, George Russell sometimes drove as fast as the leaders in the other corners.
Red Bull and Ferrari handle bouncing on the straights in different ways. Red Bull drives with less downforce and still keeps the tires working. The Maranello team can afford large wings without significant sacrifices, which is wht Mercedes believe that the Ferrari F1-75 has the best aerodynamic stability of any car on the 2022 Formula 1 grid. Ferrari can afford to have a bit of bouncing without the drivers losing confidence or a lot of lap time.
In Bahrain, Mercedes brought the misery down to a simple formula: once the bouncing is out of the way, they will also be able to fight for victory again and they will not give up on challenging for the constructors’ world championship as they hope to soon be close to Red Bull and Ferraru. For now, the bouncing builds up a wall so high that the engineers can’t even see what’s happening behind it.
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At the same time, according to Auto Motor und Sport, there is no doubt that the balance of power on the engine side has shifted. Last year Mercedes and Honda dominated. Ferrari and Renault lagged behind. Now Ferrari is the benchmark, then Honda, then Mercedes and Renault tied. “It’s all closely related. The engine accounts for at most one to two tenths of a lap time.” – Mercedes say. According to their engineers, the low top speed of their car has more to do with air resistance.
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