2021 proved to be a fantastic year for Formula One as Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen had a legendary duel for the World Championship, which ultimately went the way of the Red Bull driver in Abu Dhabi.

As well as that, we had thirteen drivers finish on the podium, a maiden win for Esteban Ocon and a first win for McLaren in almost nine years as Daniel Ricciardo took a superb victory at Monza.

While it truly was a classic season for the sport, some drivers underperformed big time in 2021 and need to take a big step forward this year to justify retaining their seats heading into 2023 and beyond.

We take a look below at five drivers who need to do better in 2022.

Daniel Ricciardo | Silvia Giorgi

Daniel Ricciardo in 2022 definitely needs to step up and do better. The Australian is renowned for his talent. When he was still racing for Toro Rosso (the nowadays team called AlphaTauri), he has been looked up to as the next great contender to win the title, when Red Bull preferred him over Jean-Eric Vergne and promoted him in the major team. That’s when something broke up.

Ricciardo had some difficult times when he departed from Red Bull to Renault before finally landing in McLaren. Many criticised his decision but he closed their mouths and even scored a win with them at his first season with the Woking-based team. All right, so why does he need to improve?

The main reason is that he is getting old for the sport, as he already will turn 33 next July and the chances to get what he wants are getting thinner.

The other reason is of course, a difficult comparison with his teammate who comfortably bested him in 2021. Lando Norris is a great driver who is still growing and improving at the speed of light. This internal comparison could not impress neither McLaren nor other teams.

Ricciardo has the talent and has the car to do it but he has to focus on delivering, without any fear before he will spend time just watching the others battling ahead.

Valtteri Bottas | Lucrezia Costa

Valtteri Bottas’s farewell season at Mercedes hasn’t been as impressive as some of his previous outings for the German team.

The Finn, who ended up third in the standings with more than 150 points separating him from his teammate, was certainly a useful asset in the battle to secure a record breaking eight consecutive constructor’s championship and to help Lewis Hamilton in his own title fight.

But it wasn’t a positive season for him, with only one win, multiple engine issues that forced him to take plenty of grid penalties, and a negative highlight being the Hungarian GP, in which after a bad start in the wet he crashed into Norris, Perez and Verstappen, knocking the first two and himself out of the race.

The Finn obtained four pole positions and a sprint race win, but only managed to convert a pole into a win in Turkey, settling most of the times for a third place behind the title contenders, never quite in their league, but also mostly failed to take advantage of their mistakes, not achieving a better position than third at both Silverstone and Monza.

New regulations, a new car and a new team await for him in 2022, and hopefully the confidence coming from his multi-year deal with Alfa Romeo will be the key to improve his performances, and help the Italian-Swiss team to join the fight in the midfield.

Lance Stroll | Marika Codispoti

Aston Martin was undoubtedly the biggest disappointment of this 2021 World Championship, and its drivers could not help but buffer the performance of a car that was not up to par.

Lance Stroll showed a better continuity of performance than his teammate, evidenced by the greater number of top-10 placings [P6 in Qatar the big highlight], but he proved to be still a bit immature in many situations, despite having improved, compared to previous years, collecting only 34 points.

He still lacks a bit of consistency and needs to improve his qualifying, although this year's performance was also affected by a car that was often difficult to drive.

Attention on track makes the difference and Stroll doesn't seem to have worked much on this aspect this year, given the mistakes like in qualifying at Mexico and controversial clashes with his teammate.

But with some tricks, a stronger car and a 4-time world champion next to him, given his skills, Lance Stroll has a very high potential for improvement.

As his team principal, Otmar Szafnauer, said: “He’s still learning, but he’s supremely talented. He’s got great car control. Loves driving. And the rest of it just comes with experience.”

Nikita Mazepin | Martina Nisticò

Nikita Mazepin: first season for the Russian Haas’s young driver. Not a brilliant season as, for the whole championship, he drove with what can be classified as the slowest car on the grid.

Surely he was at his rookie season, but as himself admitted he could have done better, especially because his team-mate, Mick Schumacher was in front of him most of the time and sometimes with a very big gap between the two of them.

Mazepin had some good performances through the year, including nice moves on Schumacher at Silverstone and Brazil, but due to many mistakes he also could have achieved better results and bagged more mileage in the car.

The duel with Schumacher saw him beaten most of the time on a Saturday. In fact, it ended 20-2, with Mazepin finishing in front just in Monte-Carlo and Hungary where Schumacher did not even qualify because of crashes in FP3.

The Russian driver seemed to have a lack of feeling with his single-seater. Indeed next year he should gain more confidence with the car and consequently he needs to improve his performance and his results.

For 2022, Mazepin should work a little bit more on the feeling with his car and try to show that he deserves to be there, beating or pushing Schumacher a lot harder.

Yuki Tsunoda | James O'Connor

Following an extremely impressive rookie campaign in Formula 2 and a great showing at testing in Bahrain, expectations were high that Yuki Tsunoda could deliver a strong maiden season in F1.

The 21-year-old made a good start with a P9 finish on his debut in Bahrain, but things went rather downhill following that start.

Spins, crashes, crossing the white line on pit entry (twice!) during the race in Austria and a general lack of pace compared to his teammate led to a very difficult campaign for the Japanese star.

He ended up a whopping 78 points behind Gasly and finished behind both Aston Martins in the Drivers' Championship, even though he had a superior car. It also cost AlphaTauri 5th in the Constructors' Championship against Alpine.

However, it wasn't all doom and gloom for Tsunoda. After admitting he was a lazy ba*tard by regularly going on his PlayStation 5 before his move to Italy, he showed some really promising signs towards the end of 2021.

He got himself into Q3 at six of the last seven events (before penalties).

Tsunoda saved his best for last in 2021. After outqualifying Gasly on merit in Abu Dhabi (P8 vs P12), the Japanese youngster drove an outstanding race to finish P4; he had the measure of Gasly in the race before the controversial ending, too.

A brilliant move on Bottas during the final lap using his fresh soft tyres meant a personal best result in F1 by a fair distance.

If he can deliver performances like Abu Dhabi on a consistent basis this year, his teammate can expect a much tougher time and his seat will not be in danger.