The 2021 F1 season produced a mighty battle between Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula One Team. Red Bull took home the F1 Driver’s Championship thanks to Max Verstappen but for an 8^th consecutive year the Constructors’ Championship went the way of Mercedes. However, despite pushing the Silver Arrows so close, Red Bull are also wary about a Prancing Horse catching them due to the 2022 F1 regulation changes. As such, Red Bull's Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley has gone on record to say that Scuderia Ferrari are the team to watch this year.

Scuderia Ferrari have not been on the top step of an F1 podium since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix which was won by Sebastian Vettel. With expectation high, the Maranello-based team then experienced a shocking 2020 campaign which resulted in a paltry three podiums. By season’s end they sat 6^th in the F1 Constructor’s Championship and in doing so recorded their worst classification for 40 years.

Fortunately, for them and the millions of tifosi, last year saw a much-improved performance. New team member Carlos Sainz energized the team which was much needed as an inconsistent Charles Leclerc could not see consistent success on race days. Despite this lack of form for the Monegasque racer, the combined efforts of Sainz and Leclerc was enough to hold McLaren off and return to the top three behind title challengers Mercedes and Red Bull.

With such a leap in a year already made by Scuderia Ferrari coupled with new 2022 technical regulations, it is easy to see why Red Bull Sporting Director Jonathan Wheatley is mindful of the team in red.  

"I think it's very difficult to predict at this point; you only have your own references compared with last year's car," Wheatley told The Jack Threlfall Show this past week. "You can get snippets of information from other teams, but you don't know if they're telling you the truth, or just trying to make you make worried.

"Basically, you have to look at your own office desk and you have to do the best job that you possibly can with that." Wheatley continued. "Ferrari - certainly the power unit - looked to be very strong at the end of the year; they were clearly the third-fastest team at the end of the year. They've got a great driver line-up, as well. I wasn't sure about whether they would gel together as drivers, but they seem to have done that very well. I think Ferrari are going to be the big unknown, or possibly the big threat this year."

Such a return to form for the Prancing Horse is one which Wheatley admits he would be pleased to see - as long as his team still comes out on top.

"My idea of the perfect World Championship is the one that we win, obviously!" Wheatley joked with host Jack Threlfall.

“But I would like a bare-knuckle boxing fight from the first race to the last; I would like to have fighting every weekend. I’d like to see, six, eight drivers capable of winning a race and it all comes down to who can string a championship together over 23 races. Who can make the fewest mistakes? Who can put the most competitive car down on the most amount of weekends and who can capitalise on those strategic calls at the last minute?

"Don't get me wrong, it would be great to dominate [and] win 23 races a year and come second in all of them. But my ideal championship is one where you're exhausted at the end of the year, but that you've achieved something extraordinary." Wheatley concluded.

Meanwhile, with all eyes seemingly on Scuderia Ferrari, the team’s sporting director Laurent Mekies has already made clear, in a press conference at the end of a captivating 2021 F1 season, that his team would be foolish to underestimate the ability of Red Bull and Mercedes to produce "a great car" this year - despite such an intense 2021 F1 title fight.

“I'm sure they had to develop [last year]," said Mekies. "However, they are, in both cases, incredible organisations and it's enough to look at the results to see it. Therefore, I will not underestimate for one second their capability to produce a great 2022 car.

“Yes, they had to spend more [in 2021] but if you look at the results they've produced in the last 10 years, you would have to be very naive to think that it's going to be easy to close the gap."

It may be naïve to hope for such things but surely that is what every neutral F1 fan is hoping for.

Whether we get the bare-knuckle boxing fight Jonathan Wheatley hopes for remains to be seen. However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves as we are yet to even see the 2022 challengers unveiled. Safe to say though that the 2022 F1 season looks set to be one which is well worth watching. To paraphrase Wheatley, let’s hope it is one where we are exhausted at the end having seen someone achieve something extraordinary.

https://www.motorlat.com/notas/f1/23992/f1-ferrari-fires-up-its-f1-75-for-the-first-time