Both Mercedes and Red Bull fell short in getting right a key aspect of their 2022 Formula 1 cars, as they failed the FIA's crash test.
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If the 2021 Formula 1 season was one of the most intense in recent memory, it is due to the battle between Mercedes and Red Bull.
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen contested a bitter battle for the driver’s championship. Ultimately it was the latter who emerged victorious, but the fight was an intense one to say the least.
Hence both teams will be keen to get one over their rivals in the 2022 season. However, both fell short in a key aspect of their 2022 cars in recent times.
A report from Motorsport’s Italian branch says both teams failed the FIA static crash test recently. While the W13 failed the test on the side of the car, the RBR18’s front was the issue in the crash test.
However, with there still a little over three weeks to go before pre-season testing, it is expected that these teams will get the necessary work done on time.
As of now, of both Mercedes and Red Bull, only the former have confirmed their car launch date. But all teams are hard at work ahead of a game-changing season for F1.
2022 will see the all-new regulations kick in, resulting in new-look cars with different design concepts. Both Mercedes design boss James Allison and Red Bull technical director Adrian Newey have dubbed the sweeping changes among the biggest in the sport.
“It has been incredibly hard,” Allison said on a video posted by Mercedes.
“Very challenging, and long, to get our heads around this and to try to figure out what the best response is to these regulations.
“And where the opportunity is to be found in order to put a car on the track in a few short weeks from now; that gives us a chance of being competitive right from the beginning.”
Since the start of the turbo-hybrid era in 2014, Mercedes’ dominance has been largely unchecked. Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel mounted a credible challenge in 2017 and 2018.
However, they fell short on both occasions and since 2020, only Red Bull have looked likely to match Mercedes.
This proved true in 2021, when the Austrian team not only matched but beat the German side too. And they will be hoping to compete against each other at the front again in 2022.
If that happens, then this could become one of the modern sport’s biggest rivalries in years. That being said, it is worth noting that sweeping regulation changes can sometimes birth new contenders.
This has been evident in both the major regulation change years in recent times. Thus, it is perhaps too early to dub the Mercedes-Red Bull rivalry a massive one.
