Racing in 2022: eight major championships you won’t want to miss

Formula 1: Miami joins the party

A record-breaking 23 grands prix packed into exactly eight months will ensure another breathless Formula 1 campaign. The race to wrap things up by 20^th November, before the unfamiliar winter scheduling of the football World Cup in Qatar, will test the teams like never before. The new addition is the Miami GP, on 8^th May, for what will be a huge occasion for F1’s American promoter Liberty Media. A race in the glamorous city has been a major target for the media giant, and having successfully (and in great haste) established Saudi Arabia as a host nation this new race on a hybrid street track/permanent circuit will represent the culmination of an awful lot of hard work and negotiation while offering another clear statement of how far F1 has come in the past few years. All 23 races count for an equal number of points, of course, but for the promoter, some races are definitely more equal than others. Now Miami needs to live up to its billing.

On the track, new car regulations promise a shake-up of the world order, while hopefully making it easier for drivers to race each other – at least that’s the plan. Meanwhile, George Russell finally steps up as team-mate to Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes-AMG – assuming of course that the seven-time champion gets over his “disillusioned” state of mind, as Toto Wolff puts it, to come back at all. Let’s hope he does: the prospect of another season of Hamilton versus Verstappen, with an added dose of Russell, will be just too good to miss.

World Rally Championship: enter the hybrids

As is traditional, Rally Monte-Carlo kicks off the World Rally Championship at the end of this month for the start of a new era on the special stages. Hybrid technology finally reaches the WRC, and not before time, as energy management becomes a crucial element for a code of motorsport that by its nature must increasingly justify its existence in a fast-changing world. The new Rally1 cars are much less sophisticated (and expensive) than their much-loved predecessors, but they promise to be far safer too following extensive research and development from the FIA. 

All bets are off until the Monte to know which of the manufacturers will come out of the traps with an edge. Reigning champion Toyota has a brand new Yaris to fend off Hyundai’s latest i20 and M-Sport’s handsome Ford Puma, which made an early public debut last year at the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard. Meanwhile, eight-time champion Sébastien Ogier has only committed to a part-time WRC programme and is ruling out a bid to equal the title record of nine held by Sébastien Loeb – who will also feature on the Monte, this time in a cameo with M-Sport. As Ogier eyes a possible future in endurance racing, his absence leaves the door ajar for Elfyn Evans to go one better than he has done for the past two years and become the first Welsh WRC king. All he needs is for Toyota to have got its sums right.

Le Mans and the World Endurance Championship: will Peugeot be ready?

The new Hypercar generation took a low-key bow last year but should kick on in 2022 at the Le Mans 24 Hours and the World Endurance Championship, as Peugeot plots its return to the endurance racing stage. The stunning 9X8 is currently undergoing an intense development programme to be ready for the season, but Peugeot has yet to state exactly when the car will make its competition debut. That leaves a big question mark over its participation at Le Mans, which reverts back to its traditional June date this season. The manufacturer released an image of the car having a shakedown run in December, and time is tight to be ready for the start of the WEC season at the 1,000 Miles of Sebring on 18^th March.

An innovative approach to aerodynamics, including a design that may or may not require the use of a rear wing, means there’s plenty to trip up the French giant. And let’s face it, even when it does race, it will be a tall order for the 9X8 to take on and beat Toyota’s already proven GR010 Hybrid straight away. But with Ferrari not joining the LMH party until 2023, when Porsche and Audi will also return with contenders built to the parallel LMDh rulebook, Le Mans and the WEC really need Peugeot to step up as soon as possible to avoid further domination from Toyota’s Cologne-based Gazoo Racing equipe.

BTCC: Sutton’s big switch

Like the WRC, Britain’s premier four-wheeled racing series gains hybrid power this year, with an energy boost feature adding a new challenge for the teams and drivers on a packed and competitive grid. The big news is reigning three-time champion Ash Sutton has sensationally switched from the Lazer Tools Infiniti in which he has enjoyed so much success for a drive beside the returning Dan Cammish in a Motorbase Ford Focus. In just his seventh BTCC season, the 27-year-old is bidding to equal the record of four titles held by arch-rival Colin Turkington and past master Andy Rouse. If he can achieve that having switched to a new team and car, not to mention with front-wheel drive instead of rear, his already sky-high reputation will only rocket further through the BTCC stratosphere.

Formula E: will it still electrify?

Formula E’s sophomore season as a true FIA world championship begins at the end of this month in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. A new and fairer qualifying format should please the drivers, who were frustrated by the old system punishing success so severely. But these are tricky times for the electric single-seater series. Audi and BMW are now absent as works team entities, and reigning champion Mercedes EQ will follow them out the door at the end of this campaign.

Meanwhile, McLaren appears to have favoured the new Extreme E SUV off-road series over an entry into Formula E. The series needs some good news – and also a season of great racing, perhaps without quite as many racing collisions. The new, more powerful Gen3 era begins next year, so this season will also mark a farewell to the current generation of Formula E car. For now, it’s down to Gen2 to reignite the spark.

Extreme E: five more rounds planned

That Extreme E completed its first season at all in a Covid-ravaged 2021 was a minor miracle in itself. It also managed to whip up a storm of interest through some entertaining motorsport in interesting places, combined with its enthusiastic and ecclesiastical approach to its twin causes of gender equality and environmental protection. Now the series has promised to return with five more rounds, even if the schedule remains highly provisional. What we know so far is the electric off-road series will return to where it started – somewhere in Saudi Arabia – on 19^th/20^th February, before heading back to Africa, then on to either Greenland or Iceland, before concluding with two rounds in South America.

Although last year of course South America turned out to be off-limits and was replaced by… Dorset! So who knows where exactly Extreme E and its ‘floating transporter’, St Helena – a former Royal Mail ship that exports the cars around the world – will dock this time around? One thing is for certain: with a reigning champion team owned by Nico Rosberg once again taking on rivals led by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, Extreme E and its flamboyant founder Alejandro Agag always know how to grab attention.

IndyCar: Grosjean targets race wins

Across the Atlantic, the IndyCar Series will continue to ride a fantastic wave of competitiveness after a brilliant 2021 season. The new guard headed by Chip Ganassi’s sensational surprise champion Alex Palou will continue to lead the charge. But IndyCar is not all about the youth movement, especially with ex-F1 driver Romain Grosjean stepping up for his first full season with Andretti Autosport. The 35-year-old put F1 and his horrible fiery accident in Bahrain behind him last year with a promising and life-affirming part-campaign for Dale Coyne’s team, and loved the experience so much he’s now moved his family to Miami for a proper crack at the whole series – including for the first time the Indianapolis 500 in May. Three strong podium finishes were Grosjean’s highlights last term and now he wants to win races, something he hasn’t done since his Formula 2 (GP2) days. If he can do so early on, what price a title charge? He’s more than capable.

W Series: ready for a new champion

Last but far from least in our round-up is the W Series all-female single-seater championship, which has yet to release too much detail about its 2022 line-up. But even though the top eight from last season have been guaranteed a place on the grid, it looks highly likely that W Series will crown a new champion at the end of season three – because double title winner Jamie Chadwick probably won’t return to claim a hat-trick. The prize fund the series offers might tempt her, but the British ace has stated clearly that it’s time for her to move on and prove herself in other categories. That’s surely right, and as she has admitted it would be good for the series too to showcase fresh talent pushing through.

Segregating motorsport by gender remains a touchy subject for some, but speak to any W Series driver and they tell you it offers a fantastic opportunity to keep racing without the often crippling need to find a budget. Many of the women in its ranks wouldn’t be racing at all without an invitation to join what was an F1 support series last term. In that sense, W Series is already serving its purpose. Now if Chadwick can graduate and enjoy success elsewhere the old arguments about why the series exists at all should end for good.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.