Motorsport: Why 2022 Formula One season could be one of the best in years

Lewis Hamilton reckons he "won't be competing for wins" early on. Photo / Getty

The opening round of the 2022 Formula One season at Bahrain this weekend should have a bumper audience. Lewis Hamilton was knocked off top spot in controversial circumstances last season by young charger Max Verstappen, who has no regard or respect for anyone on track.

The cars are different and should allow closer racing (and, boy, does the category need that) and George Russell is now in a great car at Mercedes and has the goods to beat Hamilton.

Pre-season testing showed Ferrari have found some pace and Mercedes look to be struggling — yeah, right — and Hamilton reckons he "won't be competing for wins". Also, anyone who thought the Englishman was going to leave F1 should feel duped.

Daniel Ricciardo at McLaren will need to up his game from last season because Lando Norris is shaping up to be a consistent front-runner.

Bob McMurray, who spent 33 years with McLaren and still has contacts that run deep in F1, told the Herald this could be the best season in years.

"There's a lot to unpack, and after last year's last race, let's hope the first race is a bit of a hangover cure in that everyone forgets what they had the night before and concentrates on the business of racing, and not all the rubbish that went on last year," McMurray said.

"The new car designs and other rule changes will hopefully make the racing closer, and you will see more overtaking. There have been mechanical issues, though, with the cars porpoising like they did in the 1980s. Some teams are worse than others, as usual, and then there's the budget cuts."

There were plenty of driver changes during the off-season. Valtteri Bottas moved to Alfa Romeo alongside Guanyu Zhou, Kevin Magnussen joined Haas, Alex Albon moved to Williams and Nico Hulkenberg replaced Sebastian Vettel for the first round due to the German contracting Covid.

"There certainly have been a lot of driver movements and there will be lots of battles between individual drivers. There's a whole flock of drivers under pressure. You've got Russell, Ricciardo, [Yuki] Tsunoda and [Lance] Stroll.

"The best driver pair are probably [Carlos] Sainz and [Charles] Leclerc, and they're going to have a battle this year. Ferrari will probably be the best team this year. And then you have got Haas doing the fastest time in testing."

There was plenty of talk about Hamilton's racing future.

"There wasn't a chance he [Hamilton] was going to walk away. He said nothing. It wasn't him saying anything, it was everyone around him," said McMurray.

"I had no doubt he would come back."

While the start of the F1 season will dominate motorsport headlines, there are a lot of New Zealanders racing this weekend in other international categories.

Liam Lawson and Marcus Armstrong suit up in Formula 2, Scott Dixon and Scott McLaughlin line up for round two of IndyCar, Earl Bamber is at Sebring for IMSA, along with Nick Cassidy and Brendon Hartley, for the opening round of the World Endurance Championship in a double header, Shane van Gisbergen tries his hand at the GT World Challenge and Fabian Coulthard swaps a Supercar for the TCR Australia series.