The 2022 season has marked the beginning of an era of Formula 1, with a new regulation that has redrawn the balance of power across the grid.
After the start of the season, Ferrari seems to be the team that has been most successful with the changes it has made to its cars to adhere to the new regulations. The Scuderia leads both world championships alone with a great advantage over their immediate pursuers, since they have managed to win two of the first three races with Charles Leclerc.
There are still another 20 races to decide, so things can change a lot, and the teams are working hard to improve their cars, but some bumps have gotten in the way.
One of the ways to explain the great performance of Ferrari is that the Italians put aside the 2021 car to focus fully on the design and development of this year. Mercedes and Red Bull, for their part, could not afford such a luxury, as they were immersed in the battle for the world championship.
The Italians have returned to victory after two seasons in the dry dock and, of six possible podiums, Carlos Sainz and Leclerc have achieved five. This number is the same as last season, but in only three races and two of them being victories.
To maintain the high level of demand, Ferrari is trying to recruit the best development engineers, and is also trying to attract those from other teams to Maranello.
An example of this Ferrari strategy is personalized in the figure of Gianluca Romani . The Italian engineer played a big part in Mercedes’ successes of recent years, having joined the Brackley outfit in 2019 and being promoted to a full-time aerodynamics role in the middle of last season.
However, in early April, Romani returned to Italy to put his professional skills as an aerodynamicist at the exclusive disposal of Ferrari, announcing it publicly on his LinkedIn.
Red Bull consultant Helmut Marko recently commented that Mercedes would have a serious problem if its rivals tried to attract their best engineers, as this is one of the reasons why the Silver Arrows have not yet been able to solve their problems with the poising.
