Perhaps a big rollercoaster is the perfect embodiment of Alfa Romeo Sauber’s 2022 F1 season so far, starting with a steep uprising and then falling into a pit of doom. Out of all the F1 teams Alfa’s season has probably been the most erratic and in this piece I had a dive into it and attempted to unravel why this season has perhaps been a missed opportunity for the Italian outfit.
Dream Beginnings
With a completely new driver pairing for 2022 in the form of Valterri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou, Alfa got off to a scintillating start with Bottas in particular being in red hot form at the beginning of the season.
In the first race of the season at Bahrain, it was a highly impressive showing from Alfa with Bottas finishing 6th and rookie Zhou scoring a point on his debut in 10th. Valterri’s 6th place finish was the highest finish at Alfa since 2019 and was also the team’s first double points finish since Imola 2020.
Bottas secured 8th in Melbourne, then Imola was another early highlight with Bottas finishing in 5th. The next three races until Monaco saw Valterri in 7th, 6th and 9th with points finishes especially for Bottas becoming the norm. However, Zhou up until Monaco had 2 DNF’s with Valterri also having a DNF in Jeddah. Unfortunately this was just foreshadowing what was to come for Alfa.
Ill Fated Reliability
Until Monaco, everything was looking rosy at Alfa Romeo. Bottas was 8th in the drivers standings on an impressive 40 points, above the likes of Ocon, Alonso and Magnussen and were 5th in the constructors above the likes of Alpine, AlphaTauri and were not far behind 4th placed McLaren. Stark contrast to the 2021 season for Alfa where at this stage they were 8th in the constructors with just a singular point.
However, reliability issues unfortunately started to rain down on Alfa and boy did they rain down hard. From Baku to Monza, Alfa have endured 6 DNF’s with Bottas having 4 and Zhou having 2. Not only were the races being deeply impacted through reliability problems, Fridays and Saturdays were too. Mechanical problems in practise and qualifying has became a regular fixture for the Italians.
It has made for some ugly statistics. 25% of all teams technical DNF’s have come from Alfa and 23% of Alfa’s team starts (7/30) have resulted in technical DNF’s.
Falling Behind
Not only has Alfa been ridden with reliability issues recently, speed wise they have fallen behind massively it seems. Other midfield teams around them such as Alpine, Williams and Aston Martin have upgraded their cars well and are now all regularly competing for points. However, Alfa have gone in the other direction as they had a speedy car at the beginning of the season but have slowed down significantly.
Since Monaco, in a span of 9 races Alfa have only scored 11 points. Canada was a anomaly in this run with Bottas and Zhou getting their 2nd double points of the season finishing 7th and 8th but from Silverstone to Zandvoort Alfa didn’t score a single point. The most recent race in Monza did see Alfa return back to scoring ways with Zhou claiming a point with a P10 finish.
Looking Ahead
Pre-season testing perhaps foreshadowed how this season was about to unfold for Alfa Romeo. They had good speed but awful reliability and the early part of the season now seems like a slight false dawn.
Interestingly, Alfa haven’t been alone with engine failures with other Ferrari powered teams such as Haas and Ferrari themselves also experiencing some reliability issues however Alfa by far have been the worst.
On the one hand, Alfa Romeo have made some significant gains and to an extent have been one of the strongest beneficiaries of the new 2022 regulations. Undeniably they have had a quick car at times with Bottas scoring big points at times and Zhou having a solid rookie season as well as being on course to have the highest amount of points in the constructors championship since 2019.
But with so many reliability issues besetting them, the question has to be possibly what could have been for Alfa Romeo this season?
Sport Utopia 