How did the 2022 regulation changes affect Formula 1?
The 2022 Formula 1 world championship marked the beginning of an exciting new era in Formula 1, due to the introduction of the most significant technical regulation changes since the switch over to hybrid powertrains in 2014 and a newly introduced cost cap. The reasoning behind these significant regulation changes is due to the outstanding dominance Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton have achieved together since the previous regulation changes in 2014. Winning 7 world drivers championships, (Lewis Hamilton took home the prize in 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020) and the German world champion Nico Rosberg winning the championship in 2016). In addition to these World Drivers Championship titles, Mercedes won the Constructors Championship every year from 2014–2021. So did the new regulations bring an end to the era of Mercedes dominance?
Many attribute this era of absolute dominance from Mercedes to the vast financial resources Mercedes had at its disposal relative to other teams on the grid. Some estimate that at its peak, the Mercedes Formula 1 team was outspending close rivals such as Scuderia Ferrari and Red Bull racing by hundreds of millions of euros per season. Unfortunately for us, Formula 1 teams do not publicly release their financial data so we are unable to determine the true effect each dollar spent on research and development has on a car’s performance. This vast outspending is the primary reasoning behind the introduction of the cost cap in the 2022 season. Since the beginning of what’s referred to as the Turbo-Hybrid era of Formula in 2014, Mercedes has dominated in terms of average points scored by the constructor per Grand Prix. The way the championship works in Formula 1 is that drivers are awarded ‘championship points’ based upon their performance in a Grand Prix. The top 10 finishing positions are awarded points, with an additional point being awarded to the driver that set the fastest lap time during the course of a Grand Prix.
The bar chart below highlights just how ahead of the competition the Mercedes Formula 1 team was during this period. With an average of 27.85 points per race scored by Mercedes, the competition was unable to come close during this period, as this is 19.84% more points per Grand Prix then their primary rival Red Bull was able to score during the turbo-hybrid era.
In addition to the bar chart that visualizes each teams average points scored per Grand Prix, the categorical plot above visualizes the range of points scored and outliers. Again, this highlights the absolute dominance that Mercedes enjoyed during the Turbo-Hybrid era of Formula 1. The most peculiar data point on this categorical plot is the outlier from the Williams team. During the 2014 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, Williams was able to set the record for the single most points scored during a Grand Prix weekend, bringing home a whopping 66 points. The reason Williams was able to achieve what no other team has done since is due to Formula 1 introducing a ‘double points’ system for this Grand Prix. This double points experiment was not well received by fans of Formula 1, and has not been implemented in a Grand Prix since.
2021 was the final season before the technical and sporting regulation changes, bringing the turbo-hybrid era of Formula 1, characterized by the dominance of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton to a close. The regulation changes were meant to be implemented for the 2021 season, but the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant effect on Formula 1. Many of the races in 2020 were canceled or postponed, smaller constructors such as HAAS did what they could to survive by reusing their 2020 car. One regulation change that was implemented for 2021 was the introduction of the cost cap. The cost cap is simply a limit on how much money constructors are able to allocate towards race operations, along with research and development. In the fall of 2022, it was revealed that Red Bull had breached this cost cap due to catering and employee benefits. This was the first time the new regulation had been challenged, Red Bulls punishment for this infringement was a reduction in wind tunnel time, and a $7,000,000 fine. This revelation of Red Bull breaching the cost cap was incredibly controversial due to the circumstances in which the 2021 World Drivers Championship was decided.
On the final lap of the final Grand Prix of the season in Abu Dhabi, Max Verstappen was able to overtake Lewis Hamilton. For the vast majority of this race, Lewis Hamilton enjoyed a significant lead over Max Verstappen due to the rapid pace of the Mercedes. With less than 10 laps to go, Williams driver Nicolas Latifi crashed into the wall, which caused a safety car to be deployed. During this safety car Max Verstappen was able to pit for fresh tires whilst Lewis Hamilton stayed out on track to keep his 1st place. Because of this Max was able to put on fresh, faster compound tires. Whilst Lewis was left out on severely worn tires. When Max entered back onto the track he was still in second place yet had a significant amount of lapped cars between him and Lewis Hamilton. Going against prior precedent, the race director allowed for only the cars between the two championship contenders to un lap themselves. This was intended to make it so such a close championship could be decided by a last lap shootout as opposed to under a safety car. Going into this final race, Max and Lewis were tied for first with the same number of points.
The bar chart below visualizes all the championship points scored over the course of the season, and shows how Max just barely clinched his first title, bringing an end to the era of Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton domination. Along with this there was a decent distribution of race wins, with two midfield teams (McLaren and Alpine) each winning a Grand Prix over the course of the season
This brings us to the 2022 championship season. The cars are unrecognizable, with the new aerodynamic regulations focusing on reducing dirty air. Dirty air refers to the effect the aerodynamics have on the air behind them. Before 2022 it was very difficult to closely follow other cars due to the tire wear created by the effects of dirty air. The primary championship contenders for the 2022 season were Max Verstappen and Ferrari driver Charles LeClerc. For the first five races of the season, it looked as if the 2022 world drivers championship was Ferrari’s Charles LeClercs to lose. The Red Bull car for the 2022 was slightly off the pace of the Ferrari in qualifying and had significant reliability issues, with neither car finishing the season opener in Bahrain and Max Verstappen failing to finish the Australian Grand Prix. As shown by the plot below, this quickly began to change as Max Verstappen became a near unstoppable force in 2022. Winning 15 out of the 22 Grand Prix’s, he set a record for the most Grand Prix’s won in a season and was close to beating Michael Schumacher’s record for highest proportion of Grand Prix’s won in a season.
Now you may be wondering to yourself, what happened to Lewis Hamilton after his epic battle with Max Verstappen over the course of last season? Well long story short, Mercedes completely dropped the ball when it came to building a car that complied with the 2022 regulations. For the first half of the season, Lewis Hamilton spent much of his time devoted to running experimental setups in an attempt to find a solution to the teams problems. He was charged with this task due to this new teammate George Russell being significantly younger and inexperienced. For the first time in the history of his career, Lewis Hamilton finished a Formula One season without a single Grand Prix victory. Although the Ferrari had rapid pace during qualifying session, due to poor reliability, strategy decisions and driver errors, the team from Modena Italy managed to lose the early lead it had built up over Red Bull. This mismanagement led to Ferrari recently announcing that their team principal, Mattia Binotto would be leaving the company. Mattia Binotto’s popularity rose significantly over the course of 2022 for all the wrong reasons, as shown by the time series plot of wikipedia page views.
When looking at a bar plot of the points scored by each driver in the 2022 season we find that while the drivers championship in 2022 was significantly less close, the overall grid was much closer with each full time driver scoring points at least once. Even reserve driver Nyck De Vries was able to score points when Williams driver Alex Albon sat out the Italian Grand Prix due to appendicitis. The only driver unable to score points was Aston Martin’s reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg. Despite this it was recently announced that Nico Hulkenberg would be replacing HAAS driver Mick Schumacher for the 2023 season onwards.
While the regulation changes did level the playing field and make it easier for midfield teams to compete against one another, they also greatly affected Mercedes’ ability to compete for the Constructors and Drivers championship and ended their era of dominance, ushering in a new era of Red Bull dominance. Max Verstappen proved to the world this year that despite the controversies surrounding his 2021 world drivers title, he is a deserving champion that has already put himself among the all time greats of the sport such as Aryton Senna, Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton.
The Data Sets used to conduct this analysis can be found at: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/rohanrao/formula-1-world-championship-1950-2020
