Catching up in 2022 has become much more

After the first 13 stages of the season, we can say with confidence that the battle on the championship tracks has become sharper and more interesting. Previously, the rider had to carefully prepare the overtaking, and if it didn’t work out on the first try, he could take another – and that was it. Then the tires overheated and it became even more difficult to beat the opponent, even if he was clearly slower.

In 2022, on-track duels will not last a few laps, but much longer – just think of the fight between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc in Saudi Arabia or Paul Ricard; Lewis Hamilton’s rivalry with Pierre Gasly at Imola or Mick Schumacher at the Red Bull Ring.

All this was made possible not only by changes in the aerodynamics of the cars, but also by 18-inch Pirelli tires. It does not immediately overheat, even if the car slides around corners.

The disturbed air zone behind the new machines has become much smaller. When it rains, you can see that the fog and mist cloud is distributed differently over the car than last year – the water is spread less to the sides and rises more due to the action of the airflow.

Racers feel all these changes – from their point of view, the new generation of cars behaves more predictably.

Quoting Charles Leclerc’s words, Auto Motor und Sport confirms: “The loss of downforce is still there, but less than before. And it happens more predictably. You used to never know whether the car would understeer or oversteer when chasing an opponent, but now we know how it will behave.

The German publication summarizes the overtaking stats, with a few caveats: the Miami race has not been taken into account as it was run for the first time, and the Australian and Canadian Grands Prix are compared to the Melbourne races and Montreal in 2019. And it turns out that 435 overtakings were registered in 12 stages of the season. The average is 36.25 per race.

Last year’s figures (subject to this caveat) are different: in the first 12 races there were 353 overtakings, averaging 29.41 per Grand Prix. Admittedly, at the same time there were slightly less successful maneuvers in Imola, Barcelona, ​​​​Baku and Paul Ricard. In Montreal, the riders changed positions as often as in 2019.

But this is due to the influence of various kinds of additional factors – the weather (Imola), the appearance of the safety car and restarts (Baku) or the peculiarities of the tactics (Paul Ricard). When we talk about Barcelona, ​​the numbers are still about the same there: during last year’s Spanish Grand Prix there were 45 overtakes, and this time – 43.

But it should also be noted that the sharper and more intense competition on the track this season will not lead to a sharp increase in overtaking statistics as the DRS system is less efficient on new generation cars. In fact, this is not so bad, because overtaking should still remain a “general cargo”, after all, this is a special art.

Another factor is related to the fact that in 2022 the peloton was divided into more groups depending on the speed capabilities of the cars. Although the fastest are not as noticeably ahead of the slowest as before, the biggest battle between the riders is within each individual group, and in this regard not all the goals set by the championship organizers have been achieved.

Comparative catch-up stats