F1 is back with a new era, and whilst some teams hit the ground running, others have a lot of catching up to do! Clearly, the new regs aren’t for everyone, but those who are caught out by them aren’t the usual suspects. It’s looking like 2022 will truly be the shake up the sport was craving.

Here’s the first report cards of the 2022 F1 season:

Top of the class:

Ferrari

Charles Leclerc – Qualifying: 1st | Race: 1st (+FL)

I feel that 2021 made it a little too easy for some to forget Charles Leclerc’s talent. The Tifosi have coined him ‘il predestinato’ (the predestined) for a reason, and this first race weekend served to remind us of this fact. The Monegasque was flawless on both Saturday and Sunday – nabbing pole and turning this quite comfortably into a win.

The highlight of the weekend was the thrilling wheel-to-wheel battle with Max Verstappen. I’m not sure that Max would have been able to keep Charles behind even if he did manage to fully execute an overtake, because the Ferraris are looking incredibly fast, but the fact that Leclerc didn’t even give him the chance to find that out by defending excellently certainly deserves a mention in itself.

In banishing the demons of Bahrain 2019, Charles became the first Monegasque to lead the Championship and ended Ferrari’s winless run dating back to September 2019.

Carlos Sainz – Qualifying: 3rd | Race: 2nd

Carlos had a bit of trouble matching his teammate’s pace on Friday but seemed to have largely overcome this on Saturday. On Sunday he seemed to revert to Friday a little, which is why the Spaniard is so keen on figuring out what’s happening there.

Sainz really only managed to turn this into a 1-2 for Ferrari because of Verstappen’s surprise retirement, because he was never really able to match pace with the front of the pack, let alone challenge them – but he was there when it mattered, and it’s the result what counts, not how you got there. Still, Carlos will want to find that pace before next Sunday, if the Italian team wants another shot at an 1-2.

Fun fact: This marks the first 1-2 at a season opener for Ferrari since the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix.

Haas

Alright, all aboard the Haas Hype Train! I must admit that I boarded this train a few stops ago, right when Kevin Magnussen was announced to return – which arguably was the best time to get on… but the second-best time is right now!

We all love an underdog story, and it certainly is no secret that this team went through it. With Rich Energy, Romain’s accident, Uralkali and Nikita Mazepin, it seems like the resident American team couldn’t catch a break. That is, until now.

Kevin Magnussen – Qualifying: 7th | Race: 5th

The comeback kid, that’s the nickname Kevin has earned himself in his first Grand Prix weekend of this season. He qualified P7, meaning that Haas appeared in Q3 for the first time since 2019. Turning this seventh place into a fifth during the race means that the Dane has scored Haas’s best result since the 2018 Austrian Grand Prix.

The team also finds themselves sitting third in the constructor’s championship thanks to Kevin’s points. It’s still early days, so it is unlikely that they’ll remain in this position, but thus far the results are promising. This tells us something about the power of that Ferrari engine, but it also vindicates the decision of the American Outfit to prioritise 2022 development over the 2021 season.

Mick Schumacher – Qualifying: 12th | Race: 11th

When you compare Mick’s results to Kevin, you might be inclined to question his position on this list, but I do think that he deserves this spot. Mick carried the team last year, with the qualifying pace between him and his teammate averaging around 0.9 seconds, the head-to-head qualifying battle ending with 20-2 in his favour and the race results ending up with 16 races in his favour.

Had Mick not been tipped into a spin by Esteban Ocon, points would have been in the cards for the young German on his first outing of 2022. So, whilst this time around it is a case of what could have been, he will now not only have an experienced teammate to learn from, but he will also have 21 more races to ensure the end result reflects his talent.

Alfa Romeo

Valtteri Bottas – Qualifying: 6th | Race: 6^th

When Valtteri Bottas signed with Alfa Romeo, I suspect that he predicted that he would be qualifying and finishing behind his ex-teammate, but that he would be lining up on the grid right besides Lewis Hamilton on Sunday isn’t something he, or anyone else for that matter, expected.

A fumble during the opening lap saw the Finnish driver drop down the pack, but aided by both a brilliant strategy and a few retirements he was able to finish where he started. Sixth is the Swiss-based outfit’s best result since 2019.

Zhou Guanyu – Qualifying: 15th | Race: 10th

Meanwhile, his rookie teammate Zhou had a very productive first weekend. Sure, in his climb up to tenth he too had a little luck on his side, but he showed some impressive racing as well. He completed 14 overtakes from P20 at turn 1 to P10 at the end of the race.

Alfa Romeo collected more points in a single weekend than they did in all of 2020, which is the best of starts you can have!

Then for today’s honourable mentions.

The first of the batch goes to Mercedes. Putting them at the top of the class didn’t feel quite right, as they haven’t done their homework for the 2022 season as well as they hoped they did – but considering the situation, they’re probably quite chuffed with the result of this first outing. Although I suspect that they’ll be heading back to the drawing board to find some extra pace and sort out the porpoising issue.

The second honourable mention goes to Yuki Tsunoda. Whilst the plan of taking home points quite literally went up in smoke for his teammate Gasly, Yuki crossed the finish line in eighth position, ensuring that AlphaTauri wouldn’t leave Bahrain empty-handed.

The last honourable mention goes to Esteban Ocon. It wasn’t a clean drive, as he had to serve a 5-second penalty for punting Mick Schumacher into a spin – but considering Fernando Alonso looked quicker all weekend and started three places ahead of him, it’s impressive that the Frenchman managed to get past the Spaniard not once, but three times to elbow his way up to seventh.

The Struggle bus:

Red Bull Racing

Max Verstappen – Qualifying: 2nd | Race: DNF

Sergio Pérez – Qualifying: 4th| Race: DNF

Red Bull initially looked to have done their off-season homework correctly, but at the end of the race it very much looked like they didn’t… or? Let me explain.

After the three practice sessions, Leclerc and Verstappen were the clear favourites to get pole on Saturday. It ended up going the Monégasque’s way, but only just. So the race start on Sunday was full of anticipation, would Max or Charles get ahead in the first corner? Or would they be taking each other out instead? Charles ended up ahead, but the Dutchman didn’t sit back and watch. We were treated to several close battles.

If we have to believe Max, they could have been even closer, had Red Bull been on top of their game during the pitstops and had they encouraged him to push on his outlaps. Whilst Verstappen looked set to finish second, trouble was brewing on the horizon.

It started with a steering issue, as the resident World Champ complained about how it became harder to steer the faster he went. Whilst annoying, it seemed manageable, but that wasn’t all that was troubling the number 1 car on the grid, as a few laps before the end Red Bull was forced to retire the car. More worryingly for the team is that they believe the damaged steering was caused by dropping the car to the ground after one of the pitstops.

Sergio was looking to have quite a solid weekend as well, not as close to his teammate as he might have hoped, but certainly not far off either. Unfortunately, he too was forced to retire.

According to Red Bull, it was the fuel pump that troubled both cars, which is quite concerning. Not just for the Bulls, but for the entire grid. Because the fuel pump is a standard part supplied to all teams by the FIA and Magneti Marelli. To add further weight to the story, Ted Kravitz previously revealed that McLaren chose to replace this part on Saturday and Guenter Steiner noted that Haas had a fuel pump issue on the first day of testing.

It needs to be said that the FIA put out a document after qualifying that all teams with cars in Q3 were granted an extra hour time to inspect this fuel pump, so that too indicates that something is going on there, although it raised the question as to why Red Bull didn’t switch out the fuel pumps then. It has since been rumoured that it wasn’t the fuel pump that gave them trouble, but this as of yet remains unconfirmed.

All in all, it was a tough weekend for the two Bulls, and with Jeddah right around the corner, one has to wonder whether that’s a blessing or a curse. They’ll be able to quickly move on from this weekend, but if there is something going on with the Red Bull specifically, they’ve got very little time to figure it out.

McLaren

Lando Norris – Qualifying: 13th | Race: 15th

Daniel Ricciardo – Qualifying: 18th | Race: 14^th

Whilst last year McLaren missed out on third in the constructor’s championship purely due to some bad luck, this year it seems unlikely that they’ll even be getting involved in the battle for third. Neither Lando or Daniel were able to drag their cars into Q3 and both were lacking pace all of Sunday. At one point, they were running 18^th and 20^th, which definitely isn’t where anyone expected the Woking-based team to find themselves, especially because they haven’t had a non-scoring race since last year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

I want to cut them a little slack, as Daniel Ricciardo missed Bahrain testing due to a positive Covid-19 result, but McLaren themselves seem quick to admit that they messed up, which hints at the fact that they’ll have to scrape by in the 2022 season.

Aston Martin

Lance Stroll – Qualifying: 19th | Race: 12th

Nico Hülkenberg Qualifying: 17th | Race: 17th

Porpoising seems to be Aston Martin’s biggest enemy, as the team admits that it is costing them between 0.5 and 0.75 seconds, forcing them to compromise on other parts of the car. Unlike some other teams, Aston Martin never claimed that their 2022 car would be a huge transforming factor for their car, but nonetheless, I don’t think that they suspected that they would be taking a step back rather than forward.

Because their results definitely weren’t due to the drivers. Nico Hülkenberg, who replaced fellow German Sebastian Vettel due to a positive Covid-19 test, was called in. Considering he hasn’t been in a F1 car for the better part of two years, one can only be impressed that he outqualified Lance Stroll on the Saturday.

That Nico fell back to be the last finishing car is only in the realm of expectations, especially when considering the bad form of Aston Martin this weekend. Stroll seemed to fare a little better on Sunday, but twelfth is still out of the points, so Mike Krack will be scratching his head as he’ll try to figure out before Jeddah exactly what’s keeping them away from finishing in the top 10.

The dishonourable mention of the day goes to…

Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri. Although the car going up in flames and thus ending his race prematurely wasn’t exactly to blame on Pierre, he can pat himself on the back for his form on Saturday. The Frenchman qualified a quite comfortable P8 despite the AT03 looking less than stellar during testing and in the early stages of the weekend, but a pat on the back sadly doesn’t get you any points.

Unfortunately Pierre already faces the rest of the season knowing he’ll require grid penalties owing to the extensive damage to the Power Unit caused by the fire, which could be quite costly if AlphaTauri ends up scrapping for Championship positions.

We won’t have to wait long for the next race on the calendar, as the F1 Circus will already be well on their way to Jeddah Corniche Circuit for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. Lights will be going out at 5pm UK time on Sunday 26th March owing to the clocks going forward over the weekend.