Williams, Alfa Romeo turn focus to 2022

Two more of F1’s smaller teams have joined Haas in declaring that their full focus this year is on producing cars for the all-new technical rules in 2022.

"This season is a transitional one," said Williams CEO Jost Capito.

"We are fully focused on the 2022 car as there is almost nothing we can do with the 2021 car. We will fight during the season, we will attack, but we know that our possibilities are limited," he added.

It’s a similar story at Alfa Romeo, with technical boss Jan Monchaux revealing that the decision about when to switch resources to 2022 has "already been made".

"The updates we are bringing to Imola were completed two or three weeks ago," he told Auto motor und Sport. "The engineers are now being pushed onto the 2022 project."

He said the Swiss-based team, then racing as Sauber, has struggled since the last major rule change in 2017 by not having sufficient resources to start the new project well.

"The car was four and a half, five seconds behind everyone and we still suffer from that," said Monchaux. "If you start with such a handicap under these rules, it’s over. You’re not catching that up again.

"So it’s extremely important for us that the first car with these very different set of regulations is right. Then we will no longer have a massive handicap where we are constantly struggling to not be last or second to last."