I’m guessing Merc are playing their usual strategy of building an interim car then bashing out a bunch of updated parts for the first race.

Cost cap is biting, cable ties holding the exhaust on!
I used to have a car that used shoe laces for the same thing! pic.twitter.com/YQ5ErvJggO

— Craig Scarborough (@ScarbsTech) December 23, 2021

The crash between Schumacher and Hill was plausibly because Shumi was not in control of his car

Not even slightly.

Mazepin must be relieved.

VF-22 preparations firmly on-track ahead of the 2022 season with our new chassis homologated ✅#HaasF1 pic.twitter.com/S4vR68Arso

— Haas F1 Team (@HaasF1Team) December 23, 2021

Interesting gossip. With hindsight, it’s not surprising McLaren fell so badly. Cyril Abiteboul just sounds like a dick.

Interesting segments from Kevin Magnussen’s book “All Or Nothing”:

[thread] pic.twitter.com/ZgqUlpnCPG

— Naca⁵ (@F1ToRuleThemAll) December 29, 2021

Interesting that the rear wing looks wider

That looks an odd comparison photo given the fact the wheels are a lot bigger this coming year!

I’d imagine if you placed the cars so that the drivers were side by side, the length of the front of the car probs hasn’t changed that much, but huge amounts been chopped off the back. Good to see smaller cars again though

Hopefully the much smaller floor at the rear and removal of all the associated aero bits will result in less of a performance impact from minor contact.

That looks an odd comparison photo given the fact the wheels are a lot bigger this coming year!

The wheels are a bigger diameter but with lower profile tyres I believe the total circumference is about the same? Most of the changes on the mule cars were to do with brakes and things, rather than changing bodywork for accommodating significantly larger wheels and tyres.
I don’t know whether they are wider/narrower/same though?

The new 2022 wheels tyres are larger in diameter overall, but the front/rear widths remain the same. The entries to the ground effect tunnels will need to be pretty robust, if someone cleans out what was the bargeboard area, you’ll lose a LOT of performance from the floor. Hoping the cars are a little shorter, even if they are heavier. With rumour of many teams struggling to hit the weight limit, we might see 800kg cars before fuel is added :O

It’s been up for a couple of days now, but here is a teaser from Mercedes: From Twitter

Here (source: Reddit) is the teaser lightened: https://i.redd.it/eburrq7ew2981.jpg

That’s supposedly just a generic showcar: https://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1023923&f=12#p1023909

I hope they can play with the design of the rear wings a bit. The ones on the models look very ‘Batman’ to me. And not sure how DRS is incorporate into such a wiggly shape.

I think the idea with the rear wings is to prevent sharp corners that generate vortexes. Those vortexes are what cause the turbulence that makes it impossible to follow closely. Basically, the front wing was used to generate a vortex on each side of the car that sealed the low pressure area under the car and generated downforce. The bargeboards and everything behind the front wing were just there to control and energize those vortexes. The new aero rules are intended to eliminate those and generate downforce using ground effect venturi under the car.

Mmm, unconfirmed but pretty easy to believe.

Otmar Szafnauer has left Aston Martin #F1

— Chris Medland (@ChrisMedlandF1) January 5, 2022

Edit: now confirmed

Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team announces the departure of Otmar Szafnauer.

Read more:

— Aston Martin Cognizant F1 Team (@AstonMartinF1) January 5, 2022

Wow, I thought he was in a bit of trouble when he starting saying things about Lance being a generational talent or whatever it was. Wonder who they’ll appoint.

Martin Whitmarsh?

I was thinking Whitmarsh too.

Wonder what Flavio’s up to these days?

Isn’t Flavio banned still?

There’s a pretty good roster of ex-Renault bosses available.

Heard you were looking for a new boss, @AstonMartinF1?

— Cyril Abiteboul (@NotGeneHaas) January 5, 2022

Isn’t Flavio banned still?

Bernie wants him back in F1….

That side by side picture, I thought I’d seen it discredited elsewhere.
I believe the scaling is different, the drivers helmet is smaller for a start!

Whitmarsh is already with Aston Martin, right? I guess they haven’t announced his role yet.

So, someone help me out- wasn’t Otmar Szafnauer at the helm in Force India when they were consistently punching well above there weight? Doesn’t that make him quite hot property? Not sure why he’s leaving tbh…

So, someone help me out- wasn’t Otmar Szafnauer at the helm in Force India when they were consistently punching well above there weight? Doesn’t that make him quite hot property? Not sure why he’s leaving tbh…

Reading the F1 press today, the journo’s seem to imply that making a small team do great things is very different job to building a championship winning team.

Stroll Snr seems to want the latter.

Isn’t Flavio banned still?

Bernie wants him back in F1….

Don’t they own a football team together? Probably quite good mates.
But no way Flavio should ever be allowed back

They used to part own QPR but that ended a long time back as far as I remember…

Whitmarsh is supposedly the CEO of Aston Martin Performance Technologies which is, in theory, a much higher role than Team Principal of Aston Martin F1. But, Whitmarsh wasn’t just McLaren F1 Team Principal either, he was running McLaren Group at the time too. Seems to indicate that they might want him to do the same thing for FI/RP/AMF1.

Martin Whitmarsh?

I read an online blog once that described him as “the friendly skeleton” and whenever I hear his name I think of that and have a chuckle!
Might have been Sniff Petrol where that was from…

Think I read somewhere that Szafnauer might be Alpine bound.

Think I read somewhere that Szafnauer might be Alpine bound.

Yep, pretty he denied it a few weeks back- so expect to see him there shortly

Might have been Sniff Petrol where that was from…

Och aye the noo…..

My small claim to fame is that Sniff published something I sent him, lightly tweaked of course.

singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/f1-2022/page/3/#post-12179386

The-race.com certainly seen to be theorising that.

I’d actually like to see him go to Ferrari. I think Binotto just has too much on his plate and they should let him focus on the technical side without having to deal with all the admin and politics.

I know it’s probably going to suck as bad as Days of Thunder, but I hope it doesn’t suck.

Apple appears to have won the race to produce an upcoming Formula 1-themed movie starring Brad Pitt 🏁

Full story ⬇️https://t.co/3Zj8uzGsv2

— Autosport (@autosport) January 5, 2022

An F1 film would probably be far more realistic and life-like than the end of last season…

An F1 film would probably be far more realistic and life-like than the end of last season…

Oh god could you imagine that being the ending to a film! Worst film ever lol

Thought the concensus was to keep the discussion about the 2021 fiasco on the other thread. This one will doubtless get its own disputes, controversies and disappointments.

Thought the concensus was to keep the discussion about the 2021 fiasco on the other thread.

Not quite. The consensus was that any discussion of 2021 should be on the other thread, some discussion is allowed here provided it ends before the last page.

Not quite. The consensus was that any discussion of 2021 should be on the other thread, some discussion is allowed here provided it ends before the last page.

This is very funny!