Making the biggest impressions - These 5 drivers raised the bar in 2022's first 13 F1 races
With the new regulations kicking in, the 2022 Formula 1 season has brought out various character traits from the drivers. And with these, we mean that some swam while others sunk. The cars are vastly different from the ones that came before and require a different driving style to extract maximum performance from them.
But while these are all well and dandy, not all 20 drivers managed to get on top of their cars. And do it consistently at that! Lewis Hamilton, for example, struggled to understand his new Mercedes-AMG, with the results going begging as he laboured across the finish line at many races. Mick Schumacher, too, didn't do all that great at Haas - bringing out major expenses with two massive crashes - but he finally came good and scored his first points in Great Britain and Austria.
Here we look at five drivers who improved their game in 2022.
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Kevin Magnussen
At the end of the 2020 season, the Haas F1 team announced that its drivers, Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean, would not be retained going into 2021. Enter Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin. But after Mazepin's ousting following Russia's war on Ukraine, the team drafted Magnussen back into the fold.
In his first race back, the opening round of the 2022 season, Bahrain, he finished the race in fifth place and scored 10 points in the process. In Saudi Arabia, the second race of the season, he scored two points for his ninth-place finish, with the same result in Rome (round 4).
With an improved Haas racing car, Magnussen showed that he had lost none of his craft. While not every race of this year's first 13 GPs brought about top-10 finishes, the Dane has