Red Bull way ahead of Mercedes on a unique front; Alfa Romeo is surprise winner

Red Bull and Alfa Romeo's early designs were amongst the best on the grid, while the Mercedes seemed a bit underwhelming. This was the initial impression of the cars of the legendary designer Peter Stevens.

Stevens is one of the most respected voices in F1 when it comes to car designs. The Briton is famous for designing the McLaren F1, once touted to be the fastest car in the world. He, however, was not a huge fan of the initial presentation of the Mercedes that was introduced in Barcelona.

When talking about the cars, Stevens alluded to the initial prototype for the 2022 regulations last season that did seem to have encouraging designs. Upon comparing that to the cars that were rolled out at Barcelona, however, he felt a bit disappointed with what he saw.

Speaking to RacingNews365, he said:

“We had seen those [mock-up] images which Liberty Media had a product designer work on, and the cars looked kind of good, the rear wings were cool and the sidepods were sort of slim. They’re quite nicely modeled because they had a product design guide when they were doing the aero development. I think, our expectations were really quite high that these cars were going to look quite cool. To a degree, I was disappointed when I saw the cars during that first three-day test in Barcelona.”

He then spoke of his dismay at the Silver Arrows' design, stating:

“I was particularly disappointed with how the sidepods looked on the Mercedes; there was just awful surfacing, and I couldn’t understand why – it was like three puppies fighting in a silver sack! Some of the others don’t have very good surfacing, either.”

Emphasizing how critical the design of the car is in projecting a team's ambitions, Stevens said:

“At that point, the task of the graphic designer is to make the car look attractive despite the form, because what you’re trying to do is sell stuff that’s advertised on the side of the car. If the thing looks ugly, I think it’s counterproductive to what you’re trying to do by having sponsorship.”

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Where does Mercedes rank amongst others?

After an initial analysis, Peter Stevens ranked the teams according to what he thought were the best designs. According to him, surprisingly, it was the Alfa Romeo (the team that had a torrid first test) that stood out for him. He gave the car a rating of 9 out of 10.

The Red Bull was not too far behind with a rating of 8+ out of 10 for the team. Mercedes, however, had an underwhelming 3- rating and was only considered better than the Alpine challenger.

It will be interesting to see what the verdict is for the new car introduced by Mercedes in Bahrain. This opinion does reveal, however, that the first iteration of the W13 was probably an underdeveloped version of the final challenger that the team will race with.