2022 Australian GP Preview and Tips – James Punt
2022 Australian GP Preview and Tips
Formula 1 will be racing again at Albert Park for the 2022 Australian GP for the first time since 2019. The 2020 race was cancelled just a few hours before the first practice session and last year’s race was also cancelled.
Since we last raced here, the track has undergone some alterations. Corners 1, 3, 6, and 15 have all been widened. The 9 & 10 corner chicane has been removed to leave a longer double curved straight between 8 and 11 (and a possible DRS zone), and the entry into corner 13 has been straightened and widened.
It is expected to cut 5 seconds off the lap time, making the track faster and overtaking easier. The track has also been resurfaced for the first time in 25 years. The ‘more aggressive asphalt mix’ is designed to produce more tyre degradation, and some of the corners have had subtle changes of camber.
Track Could Suit Red Bull
This is important as it may have some influence on who is favourite going into the weekend. If we were racing on the old track as it was in 2019, with these new cars, Ferrari would be my favourite. Their new car has great traction and acceleration and that would be rewarded on the old ‘point and squirt’ layout. However, this new layout looks more flowing and faster, which moves it towards the strengths of the Red Bull.
It was announced on Tuesday that there will be not two, not three, but four DRS zones. That is more than any other track in F1 and nearly 50% of the lap will now be run with DRS. Yes, the old track was very hard to overtake on, but might this now go too far the other way?
We have seen in the first two races that the drivers are now desperate not to be leading into certain DRS zones for fear of being passed in a crucial part of the lap. The way things have gone, we might well see the race being won and lost in the final DRS zone on the final lap.
While we are returning to a familiar venue, the track is now a bit of an unknown.
No Standouts
As far as driver records here are concerned, nobody stands out. Lewis Hamilton has raced here on 12 occasions but won just two, despite qualifying on pole position eight times. For the last four races here he has converted pole into second place. Verstappen’s best result was third in 2019, Perez has never finished better than seventh.
Sebastian Vettel has three wins including two for Ferrari in 2017 and 2018. Of the current Ferrari drivers, Leclerc has only raced here twice with a best placed finish of fifth. Sainz has never bettered his eighth place in 2017. Fernando Alonso won in 2006 but was last on the podium in 2013.
Magnussen made his debut here in 2014 for McLaren, qualifying fourth and finishing second. He finished sixth for Haas in 2019 and was all set for another top 6 in 2018 before the wheels feel off, quite literally, after the Haas cars had pitted for new tyres, but the fixing nuts had not been secured. Haas have tended to go well here but hopefully the team have been doing lots of pit stop practice, as poor stops here have cost them many points.
Vettel Could Struggle
Outside of Vettel, nobody has a record that stands out and with the best will in the world, a good track record is not going to help Vettel get a slow, overweight Aston Martin into the points.
Constructor wise, in the turbo Hybrid era, Mercedes have won four, Ferrari two.
Traditionally, Melbourne was the season opener and much anticipated as a result. Attrition was high as reliability tended to be poorer and the track lay out meant first lap collisions were commonplace. In the turbo hybrid era, the average retirement rate is 5.50.
We have had two races so far in 2022. There was just one DNF in Bahrain and four in Saudi Arabia, along with two nonstarters. It remains to be seen what effect the track changes will have on the retirement rate, but with these cars now being so big, it would have been asking for trouble trying to get them through the first corner without incident, and it does remain a potential accident black spot.
2022 Form
We have only had two races so far, but a pecking order is being established. At the front it is nip and tuck between Ferrari and Red Bull. Ferrari hold a 41 point lead over Red Bull but that was thanks to the double retirement in Bahrain. There was no reoccurrence of the fuel pick up problem in Saudi Arabia, which is good news for Red Bull.
The two cars are quite different but delivering much the same level of performance. The Ferrari is arguably better in corners, the Red Bull on the straights. On a well-balanced track they end up hard to separate but there will be some tracks which suit one team more than the other.
Coin Toss
This Albert Park circuit is harder to place with the recent track changes. On the face of it, it looks more likely to favour Ferrari, less so than the old layout, but there are still 14 corners. However, the widening of many corners and the removal of the chicane means that the tack will be considerably faster which will reward Red Bulls top speed advantage. It now looks like a coin toss as to who will win this weekend.
Mercedes is in second place in the constructor’s championship. However, the reality is that they are way off the pace of the top two teams. Qualifying in Saudi Arabia saw Russell nearly a full second off the pole position time. Hamilton failed to get out of Q1.
It doesn’t look like that the car is just having teething problems, but is fundamentally flawed, and their power unit is no longer competitive. They were closer in Bahrain, 0.68 slower in qualifying, and that may be more representative of the performance gap, given that the Saudi track is a bit of an outlier.
Cost Cap Issues For Mercedes
We are now operating under a cost cap, and this will limit the team’s ability to fix the problems. In the old days, they would have gone back to the drawing board and come up with a B spec car after four or five races. Is that feasible given the cost cap? It may be, but it would exhaust a very large slice of their budget and limit any further in season development.
The fact that, as defending champions, Mercedes get the least wind tunnel time further limits their ability to bounce back. Is Mercedes toast? It does look like it. They may find a way to unlock the car’s performance, but it may come too late to allow a championship challenge.
Mercedes was expected to have a new rear wing and a modified floor. The changes are not the big fix but designed to improve things in the meantime. It is being reported that their new rear wing will not make its debut this weekend after all, so it is hard to see any reason for major turnaround in form. The big rear wing they have been running is hurting their top speed. After the Jeddah race, Lewis said that the car needs ‘more grip and more power’, and that’s before we mention porpoising.
Alpine Pacy
As it stands, Mercedes are Best of the Rest, but not by much. The Alpine has looked pacy, as has the Alfa Romeo in the hands of Valtteri Bottas, and the Haas, but those teams have had problems. If they find fixes and better reliability, Mercedes woes may get worse, not better.
Bottas believes that Alfa Romeo should be able to get top 6 finishes and he is a driver to watch. He is happy that he has made the right move. He has out qualified a Mercedes in the first two races and the pace is there, but reliability is a big concern.
Haas Have Decent Car
Haas have a decent car and one that Hamilton was not able to compete with in Saudi Arabia. It is said to be relatively easy to drive, is predictable and powerful. Mick Schumacher has not scored any points yet, but Magnussen is having a ball on his unexpected return to F1. He is a more mature person these days, a family man, and probably appreciates what he has more, including a good car with which to go racing.
The team are not planning any updates for this weekend as they say their relative lack of track time (they have missed a lot of free practice time with reliability woes), means they have yet to fully exploit what they have now. There is more in the tank, but they need better reliability.
Alpine had a double points finish in Bahrain and were heading for another in Saudi Arabia before Alonso had to retire with an overheating power unit. The team say that it was caused by a water pump problem and not a problem with the PU itself. However, the problem caused enough damage to the internal combustion unit as for it to be beyond repair and cannot be used again. Alonso had a power unit problem late in the Bahrain GP and had fitted a new ICU for Saudi as a result.
Performance vs Reliability
In my pre-season preview I mentioned that the new Renault power unit was designed with performance in mind, rather than reliability. It seems that is exactly what has happened. It is powerful and on par with Mercedes, maybe better, and not far off the Honda and Ferrari units. Renault’s job will now to be to find a way to improve reliability, as a stopped car wins no points.
After Alpine, Alfa Romeo and Haas, the Alpha Tauri looks next best. Gasly has made Q3 in both the opening races and they have had an eighth-place finish in the first two races, but also a DNF and a DNS. Clearly the car has reasonable pace but remains unreliable. Tsunoda looks a bit more accomplished this season and it has been suggested that these new cars just suit his driving style better. He will be a points contender, but again, the team need better reliability.
McLaren Should Improve
McLaren had a seventh-place finish in Saudi Arabia but have yet to get a car into Q3 in qualifying. The car had looked decent in early testing, and I expect McLaren to improve, race by race, but they have been trying to solve their brake cooling problems and have fallen further behind as others improve.
The Mercedes power unit is no longer the advantage it once was, and McLaren will find beating the Alpha Tauris, Alfa Romeos and Haas cars harder work than had been expected. As it stands their car is once more looking better on fast tracks and they are struggling in corners. The track changes will help them this weekend, but there are more braking events here than in Saudi. Another points finish depends as much on others as it does to their own performance, but they may need a little luck.
Ricciardo had to retire in Saudi Arabia with what was a gearbox issue. They say it was a one off problem, but he has now lost one of his four allocated gearboxes for the season. He reckons a top 10 finish is possible but a few points is the most they can achieve.
Vettel Returns
Aston Martin and Williams are bringing up the rear. It is rumoured that the Aston Martin we have seen in the first two races, is not their ‘real’ race car. The one they hoped to have ready for the start of the season is still under development and they are struggling to cope with this overweight interim car. Vettel will return to Aston Martin after his Covid infection.
He has not driven the car for a month while everyone else has had two race weekends to get more used to these new cars. It is tempting to back Stroll to beat him on Sunday, but Vettel has always been handy at this track which might help him get back into the swing of things.
Williams had shown some promise in testing, but the reality is that it is the slowest car and Latifi in particular is struggling. He looks like having a season as the back row Jonny.
2022 Australian GP Summary
This weekend looks like another Red Bull vs. Ferrari battle for pole and the race. None of the four drivers has a track record that stands out. I was looking forward to getting stuck into Ferrari, but the closer I have looked at the track changes, the less enthusiasm I have for going big on a Ferrari win. Marginal favourites perhaps, but the lessening of the stop-start nature of the track looks to have moved things towards Red Bull and away from the strengths of the Ferrari.
Charles Leclerc is the best qualifier so far with a pole and a second on the two grids so far. He does possess better one lap pace than Carlos Sainz, but how much that will matter is open to debate. This is a track on which the pole position driver has only won one of the six races here in the turbo-hybrid era.
Big Two To Dominate
Perez got his first ever pole position in Saudi Arabia which hints that the Red Bull had the better pace on that track, and it was a surprise to see Verstappen only qualifying fourth. The big two teams have monopolised the front two rows so far and I would expect that to continue.
Mercedes have had a car on the third row for both the opening races, but they have not made it their own and we had Ocon in the Alpine ahead of both in Jeddah.
Alpine are being quite bullish about the performance of their new power unit, but Alonso’s retirement with a PU problem in the last race is a worry. The team say that the water pump failure was an easy fix and won’t happen again, but the damage has been done and Alonso will need to take a grid penalty sometime later in the season.
Ocon and Alonso had a good battle on track in Jeddah, fun to watch, but it didn’t help either driver. It did show that Ocon has grown in confidence, is prepared to stand up to Alonso and not get out of the way. Clearly, he is looking to increase his standing in the team.
Bottas A 3rd Row Contender
Valterri Bottas will be a contender for the third row, with Magnussen and Gasly very much in the hunt for a top 10 start. Bottas was another driver that had to retire in Jeddah with an overheating power unit. The team have said that it was caused by a blockage in the cooling system. They stopped the car in time to avoid any damage to the PU and say that the problem has been fixed. However, the team have had many niggly little problems in testing, practice and races and it is hard to have too much faith in them not having any more.
Magnussen is struggling with his fitness. He was racing in sports cars last year and while he is fit from a cardio point of view, his neck muscles are still too weak for F1. His trainer says that it will take two or three months to get match fit. That said, he goes well on this track, or at least on the old layout, and he will be one to watch.
Lopsided
It is clear that Alfa Romeo and Alpha Tauri are looking like very lopsided teams. Their number two drivers have scored points but are struggling in qualifying. At Haas, it is Kevin Magnussen who is doing the donkey work, comfortably out qualifying Schumacher and scoring all the team’s 12 points.
Mick Schumacher will be starting to feel some pressure. He now has a points scoring car at his disposal, there are no more excuses, and if he continues to be outperformed by Magnussen, questions will be asked as to just how much he deserves a place in F1, a Schumacher or not.
Schumacher wrote off his car in Jeddah and rebuilding it will have taken a big chunk of budget out of the team. He needs a clean weekend and preferably a point or two, but this is a brand-new track for him to learn and he really must avoid hitting another wall. He is developing a reputation for being a bit of a crash magnet, having had four pretty big ones in 2021 and already a huge one in 2022. With the cost cap now in place, that will just not do.
Four 2022 Australian GP Rookies
The fact that we have not been to Melbourne since 2019 means that we have four drivers yet to drive the track. Tsunoda, Zhou, Schumacher and Latifi. Russell, Norris and Latifi have had just the one race here. The new track layout and resurfaced track goes someway to negate those driver’s lack of experience, but they do face more of a learning curve.
This is the first race of the season where the weather forecast needs looking at. Friday and Saturday look to be pleasant, warm at around 25 degrees and mostly sunny. The jury is out on Sunday, however. It will be cloudy and again around 25 degrees, but some forecasts have a 60% chance of a light afternoon shower. Race defining weather? That seems unlikely. The very latest forecast is now saying there will be no chance of rain on Sunday, but it was never going to be more than a passing light shower in any case.
2022 Australian GP Ante Post Selections
Max Verstappen is the market favourite at a best priced 2.40 but generally 2.25. Charles Leclerc is best priced 2.75, 2.50 generally.
It is very difficult to come up with a clear favourite in my book. The first two races have been very close affairs between Verstappen and Leclerc and joint favouritism looks logical. The nature of the track is arguably more Ferrari friendly, but the revisions look likely to keep Red Bull very much in the frame. All things considered; Leclerc just gets favouritism but only by the smallest of margins.
2022 Australian GP Tip: 1 point Charles Leclerc to win the Australian GP @ 2.75 with Unibet, SpreadEx
We shouldn’t be writing off Sainz or Perez just yet. Perez was just plain unlucky in Jeddah. The safety car came out at exactly the wrong time for him and up to that point, he had done nothing wrong. Yes, Verstappen is the quicker driver, but we are just two races into the season and Perez has had a pole position, was unlucky not to have a race win and his very late retirement in Bahrain cost him at worst a fourth place. He could/should be sitting on 37 points and not the 12 he has scored.
Sainz has done what Sainz does, maximise the number of points possible. He was not comfortable with his Ferrari in Bahrain and was still able to qualify third and finish second. In Saudi Arabia he again qualified third and finished third. He has not yet looked like winning, but he is putting himself in the right place to pick up on any mistakes or problems ahead. He is slowly getting to grips with the new car but still not getting the most out of it. Despite this he has been in the fight for pole and scored back-to-back podiums. There is more to come from the Spaniard.
2022 Australian GP Tip: 2 points Carlos Sainz to finish on the podium @ 1.95 with Ladbrokes
The Haas/Magnussen pairing has started the season well and this is a track where both have performed well in the past. The Ferrari power unit should be handy around this redesigned lay out and he and Bottas might well be giving Mercedes a pain in the neck. Reliability is a concern, but on performance the Ferrari customer teams are much more competitive in 2022.
2022 Australian GP Tip: 1 point Kevin Magnussen to finish in the top 6 @ 3.50 with Skybet
The Albert Park track has historically been hard on cars and also invited accidents on the opening lap. The reliability issues could be attributed to the race being the season opener when the cars were not quite fully sorted. Now it is the third race, teams have had time to address reliability problems since the last race, so we might see more reliability.
However, the team have not had a great deal of time to sort things out and we have seen a wide range of problems across different teams and I get the feeling that we might see reliability playing a fairly significant role this weekend.
The track changes, with wider corners, should give the drivers more room to avoid each other. That is the theory, but we don’t know if it will actually be the case. Overall, it looks worth taking a chance that we see another Aussie GP with a high attrition rate. This bet would have paid out in five of the last six races here and odds against looks a decent bet.
