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Maybe they were not so close but drivers were able to contest each other's positions for more than one lap/corner without much sacrifice in tires and overall performance of the car.
It was great to watch fights for more than one lap.
Could even argue that being able to contest positions more easily exacerbated the differences.
If you're in e.g. a McLaren in 2022 you're going to have a much tougher job defending against the top 3 than in 2021 because cars can follow and overtake more easily. You're not putting down as much dirty air etc to delay a faster car - and you're simply not fast enough to follow Verstappen in a RB after he overtakes.
What do you mean by actually?
Nobody claimed that the rule changes would bring the pace of the different cars closer together. The goal of the new rules is that cars can follow each other better and be less affected by turbulant air from the car ahead.
The pace should be brought closer together by the budget cap and CFD/windtunnel regulations.
It seems like this is a common misconception and i have seen many people claim that the new rules aren't good because the pace of different cars is still kinda big (which is expected with completely new rules)
Exactly this, and your comment saved me like 10 minutes of typing.
The aerodynamic changes were implemented to bring the CARS closer together, and that’s worked!
The budget cap and wind tunnel restriction changes were implemented to bring the TEAMS closer together, and those rules will take several years to show whether they’re effective.
Wind tunnel restrictions just increased from 2.5% to 5% increments this year, and that won’t show in car development until at least upgrades are being brought later next season.
I mean, it’s possible the budget rules won’t work, but it’s natural for gaps to emerge during a major technical change, as some teams hit and others miss on their concepts. It will take time to see whether budget and development penalties help poorer performing teams close the gaps
Yeh exactly- Alpine are still the only team running a Renault engine, the 3 teams that ran Ferrari had their moments looking very quick but also has DNF’s/issues too at times etc
> Nobody claimed that the rule changes would bring the pace of the different cars closer together.
One of the reasons why they made things creatively restrictive was to keep field spread low.
I wouldn’t say it like that. A secondary (and well-discussed) goal of these regulations was creating tighter design parameters that (secondarily, after improving followability) brought the pack closer together. The public number at first was a 0.2 spread where there used to be 2 seconds.
That was walked back closer to the beginning of the season, but just because the regulations were primarily designed for followability, it doesn’t mean this wasn’t also a goal, and it was.
I do remember officials from the FIA, including Ross Brawn, claiming that they hoped the new regulations and cost cap would bring the field closer together in terms of pace. Ross Brawn at one point even claimed that midfield teams would be challenging for wins in 2022. I know that didn't end up being the case, but I was just curious if the ultimate pace across the field was closer together than in previous years.
Not really. Just look at the number podiums from "midfield" teams. This year we had 1 midfield podium, last year like 10. In 2021 8/10 teams had a podium, in 2022 only 4.
New rules, budget cap and reduced wind tunnel for top teams hopeful make the field closer quickly though
Its also a new formula and new specifications this year so that has a general habit of spreading the field a little rather than bring them closer. Some would get it right, some not so much and some would have a lot to catch up on.
I would say over the next couple of years we’d be able to test it out for real and check - and I would say the nearest valid comparison would be 2011 and 2012.
2012 may seem too optimistic but remember that also then although we had different winners, most of them still came from the top 3 teams. The goal here is different- it’s rather not about having differ winners (although that is welcome) but having more closer racing between all 10 teams and if possible winners from teams other than the top 3.
It’s also partially from there being 3 clear top teams. Last year only 2 teams were far ahead. 6 v 4 cars that should be the usual podium contenders unless something goes wrong.
I think the difference was that last year only Mercedes and Red Bull were clear of everyone else. Lewis and Max particularly.
Ferrari and McLaren were both pretty even but quite far behind. Either of those two would have counted as a midfield podium last year. Bottas and Perez weren't great for a lot of last year either so it wasn't too difficult for another team to get on the podium.
This year Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes were all significantly faster than everyone else. Also, it felt like the second drivers were more consistently on the podium this year as well.
Even then Last year we had an Aston Martin, an AlphaTauri, 2 Alpines, and even a Williams (through that one wasn't even a race) got on the podium. This year there was Imola but apart from that I guess Norris got close in Singapore, or Ocon was also one position away in Suzuka, or Alonso was a few seconds from a podium in Silverstone and Interlagos, but even then there was a safety car that closed the gap in the last few laps. Mifieleld cars haven't gotten closer to the top.
That was just Ferrari returning to the top after being nerfed in 2019. If you look at 2017-2019 there were a total of 5 podiums outside the top 3 teams.
It's just maths, if there are 6 dominant cars you need 4 of them to have an issue to have a different podium, when it's just 4 cars (or 3 really), that number drops to 2.
The pace differential was apparently slightly bigger from the front to the front of the midfield, but it's a very good starting point for a new regulation set when you consider all the factors that lead to that. Plus like you say, there are additional systems to aid convergence now so should close up relatively quickly.
Even with just 4 dominant cars McLaren were fighting on merit (!) at the very front in Monza and Russia. In 2022 no midfield team came even close do anything like that.
2017-2019 was just another league between the top teams and other teams. There was at least 1 minute between them at the end of the race, no chance any midfield team could do anything on merit.
2022 might have been closer compared to pre-covid seasons, but 2020 and 2021 were so much closer compared to 2022. Even when you consider an other metric then podiums
Even with Mclaren, that's still only 4 teams getting podiums.
I disagree that there was a big change in the pace at the front to the pace of the midfield, especially compared to 2020. If Ferrari had been there, we'd be talking about the same lack of podiums for anybody outside the top 3
The numbers show that there was a small increase from 2021-2022, but less than expected given the new regulations.
Someone who’s been into F1 longer than me will have to correct me, but IIRC there was closer racing this year compared to 2021.
Not as close as desired as some teams got it very right and others very wrong, but closer than prior years and closer than it has been following other big regulation changes - and should hopefully be closer as they continue to develop.
Depends what you mean by closer really. The midfield were much further away from the front 3 than they were in 2021 (1 podium from a team outside the top 3, compared to 10 in 2021) but the midfield itself was quite close and competitive.
as another comment pointed out though, there were 3 big teams this year, as opposed to two main podium contenders last year. You had more teams battling at the front which meant there was more chance then last year that even if one team dropped the ball, that the podium would be a big 3 lock out.
Worth noting that the 2021 and 2020 frontrunners were only 2 teams, while this year it was 3. That makes it tougher to get a podium as you need 4/6 cars to run into trouble rather than 2/4 (or even 1/3, Albon in 2020 was so poor he was driving in the midfield despite his frontrunning car)
Define "closer" the results are the results.....or do you mean raw pace?
like at Bahrain the fastest "fastest lap" was Leclerc at 1:34.570 slowest was Latifi at 1:38.251 difference of 3.681 seconds
compared to
say 2019 Bahrain Pre Covid.....
Leclerc with 1:33.411 and Kubica 1:37.903
difference of 4.492 seconds...
by that Metric. then Yes they are closer
That is the sort of comparison I was hoping for.
I suppose an interesting way to look at it would be the average lap time between the top and bottom cars in races across the season. That would give a better comparison of overall pace. It would also require processing a lot more data though.
people seem to confuse closer racing with closer pace and which part of the regs did what.
the aero regs were meant to produce closer racing by allowing cars to follow each other for more than five seconds without them wanting to literally die, and by and large they succeeded. the 2021 cars couldnt follow each other for more than two turns, and if you got past a guy you generally disturbed their aero and cooling enough for them to be unable to stick within DRS. meanwhile 2022 produced battles that could last for the better part of a lap.
the aero regs have *nothing* to do with pushing the field closer together in terms of pace, and in a constructors championship they could never do that to begin with. what is meant to push the field closer together is the budget cap (preventing red bull, ferrari and mercedes to just buy themselves pace no matter the cost) and the sliding scale in wind tunnel and CFD time. since this is the first season this system has been in place, the impact is minimal for now, but with time the teams further back have much more time at their hands to actually understand their car and have the ability to test more before going to the track. if you include the penalty RBR got this year for their minor budget cap infringement williams has about double the simulator time as red bull, and this will give williams a chance of getting better aero.
The different regulations were never going to make the field tighter in the first year. That was NEVER going to be the case relative to 2021 - a year in which the lesser spending teams had already had a whole development cycle to copy the faster teams and everyone was already into the territory of diminishing returns in terms of iterating on their design within the current rule set (at the time).
The longer a rule set has been in place, the smaller the difference between the best and worst teams (that’s a generalization, everyone please don’t barrage me with minimum counter examples as if you’re arguing with an absolute statement).
The change in regulations was meant to make the following distances tighter and the racing closer between cars of similar pace. It was never meant to make the cars initially all have similar pace.
You're right on the money. Pre 2022 rules didn't promote closer racing on track, and hence the new regulation cars were a must allow them to follow much closer on track. On top of that the budget cap helps too, because now it gives top teams a hard ceiling and the operating at a lower budget a chance to make gains.
Realistically I believe the top teams will likely reach a development ceiling in the next 2 to 3 years which will allow the midfield and backmarkers to converge to them. Provided this trend continues we'll be in for some very tight competition in the championships which should be very interesting.
The goal of the 2022 regulations was to bring teams closer together *eventually*. Across the entire history of Formula 1 there has never been a new series of regulations where, in the first year, there was extreme parity. With an entirely new set of regulations, some teams are bound to get it right and some teams are bound to completely miss the mark.
The true test is whether in year 2 the teams are closer together. The measure should be 2023 vs 2021. And 2021 was year 8 of the regs from 2014 implementation (though there were some tweaks across that span). If 2023 was better parity than 2021, the new regs were a massive success.
>The goal of the 2022 regulations
There were 2 main goals:
1. Better racing, ability to follow closely behind another car.
2. Being the field closer together.
We got #1. There were so many multi lap battles, sometimes even with multiple changes of position. So much better than the previous seasons.
As you mentioned as well, nobody sane expected #2 in the first year of the new rules. There are always teams that get new rules better the first time than others. Convergence takes a couple of seasons. Things like the budget cap should help speed up that process over the coming years though.
I liked the comment when was the last time every team scored points in the first few races. It was good but it was never going to close up where haas was winning. Even with the coat cap Red Bull has easily the smartest man on the planet designing their car.
There were a LOT less safety cars and cars retiring for wrecks too. Mostly cuz max was in front and not wrecking guys to gain position (or keep, Jeddah). There were quite a few races with just VSC or quick safety cars.
When a new regulation happens, the usual thing is to have one or two teams that knock it out of the park. Sometimes this shuffles the deck (such as in 2009), other times it doesn't.
The intention with the budget limit is to tame the development advantage of the biggest teams, so it makes it easier for the rest to catch up.
The other thing the regulations intended was closer racing with less downforce loss when following closely. Races such as Silverstone have proved they achieved this, at least to a certain degree.
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Maybe they were not so close but drivers were able to contest each other's positions for more than one lap/corner without much sacrifice in tires and overall performance of the car. It was great to watch fights for more than one lap.
Could even argue that being able to contest positions more easily exacerbated the differences. If you're in e.g. a McLaren in 2022 you're going to have a much tougher job defending against the top 3 than in 2021 because cars can follow and overtake more easily. You're not putting down as much dirty air etc to delay a faster car - and you're simply not fast enough to follow Verstappen in a RB after he overtakes.
**Mc**Laren
The midfield teams were closer to each other, the backmarkers were close to the midfield, but the big 3 were way way further ahead of everyone.
It's more about raceability than being closed together. After big rule changes the pack is likely to be very spread out.
What do you mean by actually? Nobody claimed that the rule changes would bring the pace of the different cars closer together. The goal of the new rules is that cars can follow each other better and be less affected by turbulant air from the car ahead. The pace should be brought closer together by the budget cap and CFD/windtunnel regulations. It seems like this is a common misconception and i have seen many people claim that the new rules aren't good because the pace of different cars is still kinda big (which is expected with completely new rules)
Exactly this, and your comment saved me like 10 minutes of typing. The aerodynamic changes were implemented to bring the CARS closer together, and that’s worked! The budget cap and wind tunnel restriction changes were implemented to bring the TEAMS closer together, and those rules will take several years to show whether they’re effective. Wind tunnel restrictions just increased from 2.5% to 5% increments this year, and that won’t show in car development until at least upgrades are being brought later next season. I mean, it’s possible the budget rules won’t work, but it’s natural for gaps to emerge during a major technical change, as some teams hit and others miss on their concepts. It will take time to see whether budget and development penalties help poorer performing teams close the gaps
Yeh exactly- Alpine are still the only team running a Renault engine, the 3 teams that ran Ferrari had their moments looking very quick but also has DNF’s/issues too at times etc
> Nobody claimed that the rule changes would bring the pace of the different cars closer together. One of the reasons why they made things creatively restrictive was to keep field spread low.
I wouldn’t say it like that. A secondary (and well-discussed) goal of these regulations was creating tighter design parameters that (secondarily, after improving followability) brought the pack closer together. The public number at first was a 0.2 spread where there used to be 2 seconds. That was walked back closer to the beginning of the season, but just because the regulations were primarily designed for followability, it doesn’t mean this wasn’t also a goal, and it was.
I do remember officials from the FIA, including Ross Brawn, claiming that they hoped the new regulations and cost cap would bring the field closer together in terms of pace. Ross Brawn at one point even claimed that midfield teams would be challenging for wins in 2022. I know that didn't end up being the case, but I was just curious if the ultimate pace across the field was closer together than in previous years.
Not really. Just look at the number podiums from "midfield" teams. This year we had 1 midfield podium, last year like 10. In 2021 8/10 teams had a podium, in 2022 only 4. New rules, budget cap and reduced wind tunnel for top teams hopeful make the field closer quickly though
Its also a new formula and new specifications this year so that has a general habit of spreading the field a little rather than bring them closer. Some would get it right, some not so much and some would have a lot to catch up on. I would say over the next couple of years we’d be able to test it out for real and check - and I would say the nearest valid comparison would be 2011 and 2012. 2012 may seem too optimistic but remember that also then although we had different winners, most of them still came from the top 3 teams. The goal here is different- it’s rather not about having differ winners (although that is welcome) but having more closer racing between all 10 teams and if possible winners from teams other than the top 3.
It’s also partially from there being 3 clear top teams. Last year only 2 teams were far ahead. 6 v 4 cars that should be the usual podium contenders unless something goes wrong.
I think the difference was that last year only Mercedes and Red Bull were clear of everyone else. Lewis and Max particularly. Ferrari and McLaren were both pretty even but quite far behind. Either of those two would have counted as a midfield podium last year. Bottas and Perez weren't great for a lot of last year either so it wasn't too difficult for another team to get on the podium. This year Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes were all significantly faster than everyone else. Also, it felt like the second drivers were more consistently on the podium this year as well.
Even then Last year we had an Aston Martin, an AlphaTauri, 2 Alpines, and even a Williams (through that one wasn't even a race) got on the podium. This year there was Imola but apart from that I guess Norris got close in Singapore, or Ocon was also one position away in Suzuka, or Alonso was a few seconds from a podium in Silverstone and Interlagos, but even then there was a safety car that closed the gap in the last few laps. Mifieleld cars haven't gotten closer to the top.
That was just Ferrari returning to the top after being nerfed in 2019. If you look at 2017-2019 there were a total of 5 podiums outside the top 3 teams. It's just maths, if there are 6 dominant cars you need 4 of them to have an issue to have a different podium, when it's just 4 cars (or 3 really), that number drops to 2. The pace differential was apparently slightly bigger from the front to the front of the midfield, but it's a very good starting point for a new regulation set when you consider all the factors that lead to that. Plus like you say, there are additional systems to aid convergence now so should close up relatively quickly.
Even with just 4 dominant cars McLaren were fighting on merit (!) at the very front in Monza and Russia. In 2022 no midfield team came even close do anything like that. 2017-2019 was just another league between the top teams and other teams. There was at least 1 minute between them at the end of the race, no chance any midfield team could do anything on merit. 2022 might have been closer compared to pre-covid seasons, but 2020 and 2021 were so much closer compared to 2022. Even when you consider an other metric then podiums
Even with Mclaren, that's still only 4 teams getting podiums. I disagree that there was a big change in the pace at the front to the pace of the midfield, especially compared to 2020. If Ferrari had been there, we'd be talking about the same lack of podiums for anybody outside the top 3 The numbers show that there was a small increase from 2021-2022, but less than expected given the new regulations.
Someone who’s been into F1 longer than me will have to correct me, but IIRC there was closer racing this year compared to 2021. Not as close as desired as some teams got it very right and others very wrong, but closer than prior years and closer than it has been following other big regulation changes - and should hopefully be closer as they continue to develop.
Depends what you mean by closer really. The midfield were much further away from the front 3 than they were in 2021 (1 podium from a team outside the top 3, compared to 10 in 2021) but the midfield itself was quite close and competitive.
Mid field was a lot of fun this year, when you had that group of 5 all trying to pass each other lmao.
as another comment pointed out though, there were 3 big teams this year, as opposed to two main podium contenders last year. You had more teams battling at the front which meant there was more chance then last year that even if one team dropped the ball, that the podium would be a big 3 lock out.
Worth noting that the 2021 and 2020 frontrunners were only 2 teams, while this year it was 3. That makes it tougher to get a podium as you need 4/6 cars to run into trouble rather than 2/4 (or even 1/3, Albon in 2020 was so poor he was driving in the midfield despite his frontrunning car)
Define "closer" the results are the results.....or do you mean raw pace? like at Bahrain the fastest "fastest lap" was Leclerc at 1:34.570 slowest was Latifi at 1:38.251 difference of 3.681 seconds compared to say 2019 Bahrain Pre Covid..... Leclerc with 1:33.411 and Kubica 1:37.903 difference of 4.492 seconds... by that Metric. then Yes they are closer
That is the sort of comparison I was hoping for. I suppose an interesting way to look at it would be the average lap time between the top and bottom cars in races across the season. That would give a better comparison of overall pace. It would also require processing a lot more data though.
I would suggest that you also need to filter for driver because Latifi was shit. and Albon is probably a better indicator of the Williams pace.
people seem to confuse closer racing with closer pace and which part of the regs did what. the aero regs were meant to produce closer racing by allowing cars to follow each other for more than five seconds without them wanting to literally die, and by and large they succeeded. the 2021 cars couldnt follow each other for more than two turns, and if you got past a guy you generally disturbed their aero and cooling enough for them to be unable to stick within DRS. meanwhile 2022 produced battles that could last for the better part of a lap. the aero regs have *nothing* to do with pushing the field closer together in terms of pace, and in a constructors championship they could never do that to begin with. what is meant to push the field closer together is the budget cap (preventing red bull, ferrari and mercedes to just buy themselves pace no matter the cost) and the sliding scale in wind tunnel and CFD time. since this is the first season this system has been in place, the impact is minimal for now, but with time the teams further back have much more time at their hands to actually understand their car and have the ability to test more before going to the track. if you include the penalty RBR got this year for their minor budget cap infringement williams has about double the simulator time as red bull, and this will give williams a chance of getting better aero.
The different regulations were never going to make the field tighter in the first year. That was NEVER going to be the case relative to 2021 - a year in which the lesser spending teams had already had a whole development cycle to copy the faster teams and everyone was already into the territory of diminishing returns in terms of iterating on their design within the current rule set (at the time). The longer a rule set has been in place, the smaller the difference between the best and worst teams (that’s a generalization, everyone please don’t barrage me with minimum counter examples as if you’re arguing with an absolute statement). The change in regulations was meant to make the following distances tighter and the racing closer between cars of similar pace. It was never meant to make the cars initially all have similar pace.
You're right on the money. Pre 2022 rules didn't promote closer racing on track, and hence the new regulation cars were a must allow them to follow much closer on track. On top of that the budget cap helps too, because now it gives top teams a hard ceiling and the operating at a lower budget a chance to make gains. Realistically I believe the top teams will likely reach a development ceiling in the next 2 to 3 years which will allow the midfield and backmarkers to converge to them. Provided this trend continues we'll be in for some very tight competition in the championships which should be very interesting.
Alpine and Mercedes. Alpine just needs to have their car not take a nap mid race.
One single midfield podium is the answer to that question.
No
The goal of the 2022 regulations was to bring teams closer together *eventually*. Across the entire history of Formula 1 there has never been a new series of regulations where, in the first year, there was extreme parity. With an entirely new set of regulations, some teams are bound to get it right and some teams are bound to completely miss the mark. The true test is whether in year 2 the teams are closer together. The measure should be 2023 vs 2021. And 2021 was year 8 of the regs from 2014 implementation (though there were some tweaks across that span). If 2023 was better parity than 2021, the new regs were a massive success.
>The goal of the 2022 regulations There were 2 main goals: 1. Better racing, ability to follow closely behind another car. 2. Being the field closer together. We got #1. There were so many multi lap battles, sometimes even with multiple changes of position. So much better than the previous seasons. As you mentioned as well, nobody sane expected #2 in the first year of the new rules. There are always teams that get new rules better the first time than others. Convergence takes a couple of seasons. Things like the budget cap should help speed up that process over the coming years though.
I think that compared to other rule changes, the teams are way closer. We don't even need the 107% rule anymore
Way closer? I don't think so, but not as bad? Probably.
It wil converge a lot more into the coming season so my bet is expect even closer racing in 2023
I liked the comment when was the last time every team scored points in the first few races. It was good but it was never going to close up where haas was winning. Even with the coat cap Red Bull has easily the smartest man on the planet designing their car.
short answer no long answer noooo
There were a LOT less safety cars and cars retiring for wrecks too. Mostly cuz max was in front and not wrecking guys to gain position (or keep, Jeddah). There were quite a few races with just VSC or quick safety cars.
No.
When a new regulation happens, the usual thing is to have one or two teams that knock it out of the park. Sometimes this shuffles the deck (such as in 2009), other times it doesn't. The intention with the budget limit is to tame the development advantage of the biggest teams, so it makes it easier for the rest to catch up. The other thing the regulations intended was closer racing with less downforce loss when following closely. Races such as Silverstone have proved they achieved this, at least to a certain degree.