'Mercedes may have big advantage over Red Bull Racing'

Red Bull Racing and Mercedes closed out 2021 at the top of the rankings. After the first three days of testing, the two teams are also back on top. However, Sky Sports analyst Johnny Herbert thinks Mercedes may have an advantage over Red Bull at the start of the season.

The advantage Herbert thinks he will see at Mercedes has everything to do with the budget cap, the first steps of which were introduced last year. In strictly defined areas, teams are bound by a maximum budget. The reason for this is to make the competition between the ten F1 teams fairer. This year marks the next step in the plan and the teams have had even less to spend.

'Mercedes spent less on 2021'

According to the Briton, Mercedes may have played a long-term strategy in 2021 in order to be ahead of its rivals in 2022. Herbert then compared the development strategies of the two top teams in 2021 at Sky Sports: "They [Mercedes] didn't spend much last year. Their biggest update was at Silverstone. Red Bull, on the other hand, came up with an update almost every race." Herbert thinks Mercedes deliberately opted for few, but big updates to use the budget they had left in advance to develop the W13.

The conclusion Herbert draws from his argument is: "I think it will happen again this year for Lewis Hamilton." Whether Herbert knows more or whether this is just the personal wish of the Briton is not clear. In any case, the analyst seems to find it striking that Mercedes came up with fewer updates in 2021, even though they were bound by the same budget as Red Bull Racing and the other teams.