Despite McLaren's disappointing end to 2021, Lando Norris believes the skirmishes with Ferrari along the way were beneficial to both teams.
While the pre-Christmas fire-up of the Mercedes car shows how far the team has progressed, other teams are still planning to launch their cars.
Hamilton's bid for a record eighth World Championship ended in controversy at the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix in 2021.
The likes of McLaren’s Lando Norris, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, and Williams’ (now Mercedes) George Russell delivered some great performances.
The two title protagonists, Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen, took it to the very last lap of the very last race to decide the championship.
Latifi crashed with five laps remaining, resulting in the safety car, with the race then restarted with just one lap to go where the title was decided.
Sergio Perez was out of a seat until late in 2020 before joining Red Bull Racing as Max Verstappen's teammate this year.
Four days after winning the dramatic Abu Dhabi GP, the 24-year-old got his hands on the driver's championship trophy.
As he evaluated Mick Schumacher's performance over 22 races, Sebastian Vettel driver acknowledged how difficult it has been.
Mercedes announced on Thursday that they had withdrawn their appeal against the race result, but they remain deeply disappointed.