Alpine’s Fernando Alonso pipped Mercedes driver Hamilton for seventh place behind a battle between Ferrari and Red Bull at the Monaco GP. Hamilton lost patience as he failed to pass Alonso, his sluggish pace leaving him more than half a minute behind in sixth place.
“That’s not my problem,” Alonso said of Hamilton’s frustration as he explained his post-race confusion.
In the year The controversial finish at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix angered Mercedes boss Toto Wolff after race director Michael Massi allowed several cars to free themselves and set up a final race between arch-rivals Hamilton and Verstappen. right away. The FIA has been the talk of the town for 2022 as it presents the investigation’s findings and makes sweeping changes in the hope of preventing a repeat.
Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has been consistent in his defense of Verstappen’s success, but eventually admitted Massi was wrong.
At the Canadian Grand Prix, George Russell experienced something new in his F1 career: being booed by the crowd.
Russell’s response was that such behavior “must be stamped”, and that he was taking a “bit of an adjustment” after receiving negative attention at the Grands Prix after his move to Mercedes earlier in the year.
Three different F2 drivers have had their bans lifted over the course of 2022 after reaching 12 penalty points on their licences. Two of them were left cursing track limit violations that contributed to the total.
During the season’s feature race in Bahrain, Ollie Caldwell exceeded the track limit six times, resulting in multiple penalties, a drive-through penalty and seven post-race penalty points.
Amaury Cordell was given five penalty points for the same amount of infringements at Imola. He managed to accumulate seven more points in six rounds, earning him an automatic disqualification for the next race.
Later in the season, Roy Nissan joined the pair after serving a ban due to accidents with other drivers.
The exact quotes are captured by the camera
Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo were caught revealing some interesting details in candid clips this season.
At the Austrian Grand Prix, Hamilton was heard talking privately with Leclerc about their victory at the previous race at Silverstone. “I’m not going to just cut you off,” Hamilton said of Leclerc’s outside pass at Copse in a dramatic introduction to his collision with Verstappen at the same corner 12 months ago.
Meanwhile at the Dutch Grand Prix, 11 days after announcing his early exit from McLaren, Ricciardo handed over his future plans to Perez. “I will take a year off and come back in 2024,” he was then caught saying in a clip shared on social media. Weeks later, those plans were made public.
Indycar’s top dog
Norman Pagenaud is one of the personalities of the IndyCar paddock, even though he’s not a man. Simon Pagenaud, the 2016 champion, has a social media following and is so well-respected that he can enter hospitality for other teams in addition to the Meyer Shank Racing Team he drives.
At the Gateway Oval, the four-legged celebrity was even available for an autograph session just for the drivers.
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Doubts of tearing Ferrari
Leclerc was forced to make an early pit stop during the Belgian Grand Prix when his front right brake hose developed a visible tear and began to overheat.
Ferrari put the blame on Verstappen, who had shed a tear in one of the races as they raced down the order in front of Leclerc. The pit stop meant Leclerc could finish no higher than sixth on the grid, 15th, while Verstappen won the race after starting 14th.
However, later analysis of the video suggested that the errant teardrop likely came from another driver, Lance Stroll.
Screen stops are played in IndyCar
While it’s the primary way spectators watch racing on the track, large video screens that show the rest of the lap are key to the fan experience. At the Portland Grand Prix, a fault with one of these screens caused a practice session to be halted as it began to tilt and become a safety hazard.
Tsunoda fell under the relaxed rule
Before the start of the season, F1 increased the number of cautions, increasing automatic grid penalties from three to five. But Alphatouri’s Yuki Tunoda still managed to make ends meet, picking up his fifth penalty for driving with a loose belt at the Dutch Grand Prix.
As it was his fifth penalty of the season, he avoided a 10-place grid penalty for the Italian Grand Prix. Tsunoda reached Q2 in Italy but he also missed out due to a three-place grid penalty for failing to slow down for yellow flags and then further grid penalties for changing power unit elements.
Grid confusion at Monza
Tsunoda was one of nine drivers handed a grid penalty at Monza. This left some drivers confused about where to start – at least two were expected to start seventh – and eventually led the FIA to issue new guidelines on how the starting order should be set.
Only one of the convicted drivers served their entire sentence in exceptional circumstances. See the story below for a full explanation of how the grid was determined.
Point confusion in Suzuka
After two race weekends, the Japanese Grand Prix was reduced to just 28 of the scheduled 53 laps, causing further confusion over the implementation of the rules governing F1’s points system.
New rules for 2022 mean that if a race is run less than 75% of the intended distance, the winner cannot get more than 19 points for victory, but this clause was not implemented as intended in Japan. The incident culminated in a post-race penalty for Verstappen’s championship rival Leclerc. After many ups and downs, Verstappen finally finished the race with a checkered flag instead of a red flag, convincing him that he had done enough to win the title.
Red Bull has called the decision to award full points for the Japanese GP a “mistake”.
A closed paddock creates a problem
Being in the F1 paddock costs a lot if you’re not one of the working members, and with an active workplace comes responsibility. But the excitement of being at the heart of the F1 world can lead some to engage in irresponsible behavior, which was a source of frustration for drivers during the Mexican Grand Prix, explained Pierre Gasly and others.
Another E-Prix has been cancelled.
Formula E was supposed to return to Canada this year. The 2016-17 season ended in Montreal, but local protests prevented further races and the 2022 season from including a race at the former IndyCar track in Vancouver.
However, promoters and the city council did not see eye to eye, and the competition was extended to the 2023 season before being canceled altogether. Documents later surfaced revealing just how much of an organizational mess the proposed Vancouver e-Prix was.
Domenicali raised rumors about the “Caribbean” race
In January, the President of Colombia expressed to the Mayor of Barranquilla, Jamie Pumarejo, that he supports the desire to build the 1st class of the FIA in the port city. In August, FIA president Mohamed Ben Suleiman was mentioned in the headlines about organizing an F1 race in Colombia, then a month later, the mayor of Barranquilla said he was in talks with F1. The president of the series, Stefano Domenicali, later visited the city and speculations began to form around the future ‘Caribbean Grand Prix’.
But even with China removed from the 2023 F1 calendar, don’t expect the Colombian race to take its place.
New names for rookie champions
Continuity isn’t always the best way to build brand recognition, according to this series:
Indy Pro 2000: Announced in October that it will be the 2023 USF Pro 2000. The initialization of the USFP2000 is very similar to the USF2000, the series it feeds into. At the same time, the ‘Road to Indy’ bill that both series were going by dropped the designation and became the ‘USF Pro Championship’ even though it was the road to Indy for most drivers. Indy Lights: Three weeks later, he did the same thing. The series over USFP2000 has changed its name to Indy Nxt for 2023 after ‘going’ the route to Indy for 2022. Rather than Formula being a regional Asian championship, the word ‘next’ was FRAC, which from 2021 was contested exclusively in the United Arab Emirates. It has decided to restart the Middle East as a Formula 1 region next season, with two rounds in Kuwait. In the announcement, FRAC said it will continue its existence and return to racing in Southeast Asia and China after it is secured.Toyota Racing Series: A month before the start of the 2023 season, the legendary TRS has changed its name. Formula 1 regional Oceania and superlative points value from the FIA are behind it. But it remains a national rather than an international series, competing only in New Zealand.
The bird strike turned out to be a disappointing year for the F2 racer
Theo Purchier could finish second in F2 this year, with three feature race wins, but he has only scored five points in the last eight races. The season ended with another unfortunate blow: Failing to see the checkered flag for the fifth time in 2022, he birdied the track for the second time in a three-day weekend in the final race. Damage to the car’s interior forced him to retire.
Sauber’s protégé has struggled with his future without winning the championship and failing to earn himself an F1 seat.
Former F1 star Fisichella is back with a single seater
Three-time Grand Prix winner and Ferrari GT star Giancarlo Fisichella ended 13 years without a single seater by entering the Tasman Series at Adelaide’s street circuit earlier this month.
The 49-year-old made his F1 debut in the year he replaced Adelaide in Melbourne, making his debut on the track. Fisichella was set to make an open-wheel return in an S5000 car at the 2020 Australian Grand Prix, before that event was canceled mid-weekend, and so the Adelaide appearance was his S5000 race debut. He managed to finish fourth best of the four races that took place over the weekend.
2022 F1 season
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