The entire grid feared that with the change in the technical regulations for the 2022 season, the hierarchical order would remain the same, with the Mercedes team as the absolute dominator. However, from the first appointment of the course in Bahrain it was already possible to verify that this would not be the case, and that those who had held the positions of honor throughout the hybrid era would suffer to regain their throne.
The Silver Arrows, after five races, have managed to minimize damage, a term that Lewis Hamilton does not like, so it would be more accurate to say that they have maximized results. In the last Miami Grand Prix, the German team was able to place its British duo in 5th and 6th place, thus being ‘the best of the rest’, behind Red Bull and Ferrari.
At the gates of the sixth round of the world championship, at the always crucial Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained how they arrived in Spain: “With the third fastest car, we extracted the maximum possible points in Miami” .
“During practice on Friday, the car showed glimpses of its true potential,” continued the Austrian. “We have continued to experiment with the set-up, we have fitted some new components, and that has given us answers and indications on the direction to follow.”
The Germans have gone from comfortably leading the classification since 2014 , with the only exception of last year in the battle with Red Bull, to being third, although with a lot of room for maneuver to recover: “In the factories a lot of work has been done to decipher the data from Miami and turn it into improvements for Barcelona”.
“Having raced there in winter testing, albeit with a car that has evolved a lot since then, it will be a good circuit to correlate all the information we have on the current car, and we are hopeful that we will take another step forward,” he said. the head of Mercedes.
The Barcelona track has always been a place of trial and error for the teams due to its configuration, which allows you to see the behavior of the cars both on the long finish straight and in the high, medium and low speed corners.
“The circuit itself is a good all-rounder, so it really tests every aspect of the car,” Wolff said. “It’s never been a great track to overtake, so it will be interesting to see how these new Formula 1 cars affect the show in Spain.”
“If we compare it with basketball, we are heading to Barcelona at the end of the first quarter of the game. We know that, once we translate the learning we have done into performance on the court, there is still a lot of game to play”, concluded the team leader who they have won the last eight constructors’ titles.
