Before the start of the 2022 season, I predicted the Drivers Championship standings, the Constructors standings and some bonus/wacky predictions. Let’s see how I got on.
Wacky Predictions
My first prediction was Ferrari would get pole in Bahrain. That did happen with Charles Leclerc so I’m happy with that one. My second prediction was “The Red Bull Family massively drop off this year and Ferrari attempt to buy Alpha Tauri F1 off Red Bull Racing”. This wasn’t a good prediction. I also predicted that Alfa Romeo would have the worst car this season which definitely didn’t happen. My prediction of “at least 7 different winners from 5 different teams” was more hope than belief I think. It ended up being 5 winners from 3 different teams. I said Alpine would have their best season since 2005 and 2006 and this didn’t quite happen, but they still had a good season.
For the second half of my predictions, I put that Alpha Tauri would announce a brand-new driver line-up for 2023 and I’m taking half a point for that. Yuki’s stayed but Pierre’s gone. I wasn’t correct with my prediction about half of the drivers moving teams and I also was wrong when it comes to picking Dennis Hauger to win the Formula 2 Championship. However, my prediction of “at least 8 teams finishing in the top 6” was actually an underestimate as only Williams failed to finish in the top 6. I’m happy with that one. And finally, I predicted Lewis Hamilton to retire at the end of the season. That hasn’t happened.
How I predicted the 2022 Drivers Standings
20. Nikita Mazepin – Nikkita didn’t actually race this season.
19. Zhou Guanyu – Zhou finished 18th in the end but despite only being 1 place higher than my prediction, he drove way better than I expected.
18. Mick Schumacher – Mick ended up finishing in 16th place. Weirdly enough, he actually drove way worse than I thought he would.
17. Valtteri Bottas – I was a long way away with this prediction as Valtteri finished in 10th place. I fully based this on the fact that I thought Alfa Romeo would be awful.
16. Nicholas Latifi – Nicholas finished last in this year's championship. I got this wrong for two reasons, 1 because I expected more from the Williams and 2, I thought he would improve this year, but he’s gone backwards if anything.
15. Yuki Tsunoda – Yuki finished in 17th place. Even though on paper I overestimated him, I thought he wouldn’t be on the grid next year so on that basis, he hasn’t done too bad.
14. Pierre Gasly – I got this spot on. I didn’t expect Alpha Tauri to be very good this season and that happened so I’ll take a point for this thankyou.
13. Alex Albon – Alex finished 19th place in the Championship, but I’m not annoyed at this prediction. Alex did as well as I expected in terms of performance, but his car wasn’t as competitive as I had predicted.
12. Daniel Ricciardo – I nearly got this perfect. He finished 11th in the championship, level on points with 12th. Also, I said Daniel would lose his McLaren seat and he did!
11. Sebastian Vettel – Seb finished in 12th place so I did pretty well. I also said he wouldn’t be at Aston next year so I’m definitely improving.
10. Lance Stroll – This was a bad one. Lance finished 15th and this definitely wasn’t his best season in Formula 1 which is what I had predicted at the start of the year.
9. Esteban Ocon – Esteban finished 1 place higher than I predicted. I said he would do well but by the looks of it, I actually underestimated the French driver.
8. Sergio Perez – I expected Red Bull to really struggle this year but that obviously didn’t happen. I did say Checo would be closer to his teammate this year and he certainly was at the start of the year.
7. Fernando Alonso – Fernando ended up finishing 9th in the championship. He drove really well this season so I’m not too disappointed with this one.
6. Lando Norris – Lando ended up finishing 7th in the championship so I feel pretty good about this prediction. However, I was wrong when it comes to saying that Lando was going to win a race this season.
5. Max Verstappen – This was a really bad prediction. Max ended up winning the championship by 146 points! However, I said Max would drive as well as last year and to be honest, that was also wrong because he’s arguably been even better this year.
4. Charles Leclerc – Charles finished second this season so I got that one wrong. I was at least right when it came to saying he would be fighting for wins at the start of the season.
3. Carlos Sainz – In the end, I overestimated Carlos Sainz this season as the Spaniard ended up finishing in 5th place. However, I was correct when it comes to saying that Carlos would earn his first pole position and race win this season.
2. George Russell – I was completely wrong with George for 2 reasons this season. 1, because he finished 4th in the championship and 2, he managed to beat his teammate which is something I didn’t expect at the start of the year.
1. Lewis Hamilton – Both Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton struggled this year. I expected Lewis to smash the competition, but he ended up finishing 6th in the drivers championship, 214 points off Max Verstappen.
How I predicted the 2022 Constructors Championship
10. Haas – I expected Haas to have another tough season off the back of a horrible 2021. In the end, they finished 8th in the championship so they can definetly take positives from that.
9. Alfa Romeo – Alfa Romeo ended up finishing 6th in the championship. I thought they would struggle to score more than 10 points, but they ended up scoring 55 so I was definetly wrong with this one.
8. Alpha Tauri – I expected Alpha Tauri to drop off this season and they did. However, they actually did even worse than I expected as they finished in 9th place.
7. Williams – I had faith in Williams this season, but it just didn’t come to be. Williams finished bottom of the constructors with just 8 points.
6. Aston Martin – I was close with this one, but Aston ended up finishing 7th in the championship, level on points with Alfa for 6th place.
5. McLaren – I got this one right. I expected 1 McLaren to be quick and 1 to struggle and that happened. Happy with this one.
4. Alpine – Also got this one right. I expected Alpine to have a really good season and they did to be fair. They will want more next year though.
3. Red Bull – Red Bull Racing won the constructors championship by 205 points. It’s safe to say I got this one pretty wrong!
2. Ferrari – A point for me! I expected Ferrari to be quick this year before they eventually drop off and to be fair, that did happen.
1. Mercedes – Merc did what I expected Red Bull to do. They dropped off after fighting hard for a championship last season. They’ll be back next year though.
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