Alfa Romeo has unveiled their challenger for the 2022 Formula 1 season. Called the C42, the car’s reveal was so far apart from the other teams’ that they actually ran it in camouflage at this past week’s pre-season testing in Barcelona. The C42 will be driven by Valtteri Bottas and Guanyu Zhou, both of whom are new to the team for 2022. Bottas moved from Mercedes, replacing a retiring Kimi Raikkonen, while Zhou is moving up from Formula 2 to replace Antonio Giovinazzi.
The car’s livery sticks with Alfa’s red
and white color scheme that they’ve been using since 2018, but this year
they’ve gone simpler and more retro with the design. Contrary to previous
years, which featured bodywork-following designs with a large Alfa Romeo logo
drawn in the negative space, they’ve elected to go with simple straight lines
cutting across the car and retro Alfa Romeo script in place of the logo. Other
details include red and white painted wheel covers and an Italian flag on the
underside of the rear wing.
Aside from the striking livery, like
almost every other car on the 2022 grid, the C42 also displays some unique
physical traits. Some notable features include a wavy nose and front wing,
split center intake, and pushrod rear suspension. Like the Haas VF-22 (the real
version of which we got to see out on track this week), the C42 has wide
undercut side pods with air outlet vents, the size of which are only
exacerbated by the fact that they’re left as bare black carbon. The fact that
both cars would have similar packaging makes sense, though, given that both
teams are using Ferrari powertrains.
