Though Formula 1 is only at its summer break in the 2022 season, it has already been a wild season in which the Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship odds outlooks have undergone considerable change.
Charles Leclerc and Ferrari first surged atop their respective F1 betting boards before Max Verstappen and Red Bull roared back into the picture — all while Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes were steeped in drama of their own.
With 13 races in the books and 10 ahead in the 2022 F1 season, we’re bringing you a first-half recap of what we’ve seen and a second-half preview of what’s to come.
First helped recap
Ferrari starts strong
As F1 neared this era of new regulations, there was optimism at Ferrari, with many internally and externally anticipating a return to form for the once-dominant team. It had spent years focusing its resources on 2022, and ’21 proved it would enter the new regulations with one of the grid’s best driver pairings in Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr.
The notion of Ferrari disrupting Mercedes and Red Bull’s hold on the top spots became more realistic during preseason testing — where the Italian outfit shined.
FERRARI WIN THE PRESEASON TESTING CHAMPIONSHIP pic.twitter.com/hafb1nXj0g
— Andrew ???? (@AndyGraham22) March 11, 2022
Preseason whispers got louder at the first race of the season, the Bahrain Grand Prix, as Leclerc took pole with Sainz qualifying third, and the pair finishing 1-2 in the race.
Another double podium followed at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix before Leclerc took firm hold of the title fight with an utterly dominant showing at the Australian Grand Prix, moving to as short as -200 in the Drivers’ Championship odds board.
Red Bull’s charge
While Ferrari enjoyed its early season renaissance, Red Bull was facing an all-too-familiar reality, with fears that reliability issues could sabotage a title-worthy car.
The season opened with both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez retiring in Bahrain, then disaster as Verstappen yet again suffered a failure in Melbourne. The nightmare start for Red Bull, and Verstappen’s title defense, left its lead driver despondent.
Max Verstappen on his title hopes:
“It’s a long season but at the moment, I think I need 45 [races] to have another chance. I’m that far behind…
We need to get faster and more reliable, so I’m not thinking about the championship”.
[https://t.co/0dlamjJFtR]
— formracers (@formularacers_) April 12, 2022
The Dutchman’s long climb out of his early season hole got a lot easier right away, as he took the maximum 34 points at the following Grand Prix, making up four spots in the championship to sit second — and just 27 points back of Leclerc.
That race, in Imola, helped set the stage for the remainder of the first half of the season. Verstappen and Perez delivered Red Bull a 1-2, while Ferrari saw its drivers make an unforced error and drop down the grid (Leclerc) and retire early (Sainz).
Verstappen’s victory was the first of five in six races — with Perez taking the other — and the team combined for 14 podiums in 18 opportunities. Over that same stretch, Ferrari’s cars retired from five different races, whilst poor strategic decisions littered the races it did complete — crushing any remaining optimism and the semblance of a title fight.
In the last 10 grands prix Max Verstappen has scored more points alone than Ferrari (233-230) as the team’s hopes collapsed: https://t.co/DoqgWkCAmT
— Phillip Horton (@PHortonF1) August 10, 2022
Incredibly, after his crestfallen reaction after the race in Melbourne, Verstappen’s now a -1,200 favorite to repeat as the Drivers’ champion.
Midfield movers
F1’s new regulations also gave teams that had fallen behind in the previous era a chance to catch up — while also opening a trap door for teams that had made good progress to fall through. Thus far, both of those scenarios have played out.
Haas, the most financially pressed team on the grid, punted on the final couple of years of the previous regulations, scoring just three points across 2020 and ’21. With a more even financial landscape — and a strong Ferrari engine in its ’22 car — Haas has reemerged as a factor in the midfield this season.
The team took 10 points in the opening race, more than tripling its total from the previous two seasons combined, and earned its first double points finish in three years in Silverstone — and then did it again in the following race.
Haas’s resurrection under the new regulations has it in the battle for sixth in the Constructors’ Championship and almost certain to end the season with its second-best ever finish.
On the other side of the coin is McLaren, who, while comfortably in the Top 5 in the Constructors’, is mired in a disappointing ’22. Arguably no team entered this new era with as much optimism as the Papaya, who ended last season fighting Ferrari for third and earned its first race win since 2012.
Instead, it has gone backward. Through 13 races, it has just one podium and 14 top-10 finishes, compared to three and 20 at this stage last season. The initial development of the car set the team back massively, and now a legal battle regarding its ’23 lineup looms — all while it has been passed by Alpine for fourth in the Constructors’.
In fifth, on 95 points, last year’s fourth-place finisher is a +110 underdog to finish ahead of Alpine (-150) at bet365.
Second half preview
Any Ferrari fight?
Ferrari’s collapse not only severely damaged Leclerc’s Drivers’ Championship hopes but also allowed Red Bull to make major strides in the Constructors’ fight. The latter was more expected, with it quickly apparent that reliability issues aside, Red Bull’s car was superior to its competition.
That is, until Ferrari lobbed an interesting barb into the F1 ether. After Sainz won at Silverstone and then Leclerc in Austria — the latter in excellent fashion, overtaking Verstappen three times — Team Principal Mattia Binotto said he believed Ferrari had “closed the gap to Red Bull” after his team’s latest upgrades.
As Verstappen already proved this year, even a seemingly insurmountable points gap doesn’t bring an end to a title fight. However, with Ferrari 97 points back of Red Bull and Leclerc 80 back of Verstappen, there won’t be any more time for posturing in the second half.
If it is to factor into the title fight this season, it has to start immediately.
Silver Arrows lurk
Perhaps no development in 2022 was as surprising as Mercedes’ struggles. During a dominant spell in the previous era, F1 fans and other teams became so accustomed to the German team struggling in preseason that its ’22 issues were hardly acknowledged ahead of the first race.
What followed, however, was genuine — and stunning. The dynastic Formula 1 team, winners of eight straight Constructors’ Championships, fumbled the new regs in a brutal fashion. Not only was there a genuine pace deficit to the other top teams but the car was downright undrivable at certain circuits, porpoising wildly at high speeds.
Mercedes team radio at the end of the GP:
Wolff: “Hi Lewis, Sorry for what you had to drive today. I know this is undrivable.”
Hamilton: “Yeah, no worries, Toto. Just keep on working hard.”
Wolff: “We will come out of this.”
— Ben Hunt (@benjhunt) April 24, 2022
As great teams do, however, Mercedes stayed the course and slowly improved. As the summer break loomed, so too did Mercedes. It has had at least one podium finish in seven of the last eight races, with Lewis Hamilton on a streak of five races in a row on the podium, and enjoyed back-to-back 2-3 finishes before the break.
Between Mercedes’ miraculous consistency and Ferrari’s string of errors, the title holders find themselves just 30 points back of second place. For Mercedes backers, the Belgian Grand Prix is likely your last chance to get good value on it (+150) to finish ahead of Ferrari this season (-200 at bet365).
What once seemed like an impossibility is now an inevitability: Mercedes has won a race in 10 consecutive seasons in F1, and at some point during the season’s second half, that will extend to 11.
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