DIFFERENT PROBLEM, SAME STORY?
“What Mercedes must do to fix the W12”. Don’t worry, it’s fine. You’re reading the latest issue of Autosport and Mercedes is facing a big job to keep its Formula 1 title streak alive. You have, however, just somehow travelled back in time to 15 April 2021. Don’t ask us how, just stick a few quid on Max Verstappen winning the 2021 world title. Trust us, it’ll work out even when Lewis Hamilton is leading by miles as the final laps of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix approach…
Once you’ve collected your winnings, sit back and relax until 7 April 2022 – and note if you please that Ferrari, yes, really Ferrari, is going to win the new season opener. Today, that point has arrived and the 2022 F1 season is well under way, with your inexplicable reality-changing journey complete and the latest issue of Autosport open before you.
It’s a new year, new F1 season, but something almost as far-fetched as a whimsical time-travel tale has really happened: the mighty Mercedes squad is simply unable to win races on pure pace.
Given its staggeringly long period of success since the start of the turbo-hybrid era, it seemed unlikely that what was then the Black Arrows team would end 2021 with the first blemish on a championships run that now stretches back eight years. But that happened and the W12 is only the second works Mercedes turbo-hybrid not bestowed with a Hamilton title accolade. And, while the possibility was always there, it seemed pretty preposterous to consider that when the start of F1’s new car design era began, Mercedes would be the team to have most missed the mark. Sure, it has the clear third fastest car at the start of ground-effect’s return and is ahead of many squads
