Just a few years after being unable to race in Formula 2 due to financial reasons, Logan Sargeant has been given a big break as he joins Alex Albon at Williams but he’s unlikely to get the better of his experienced teammate. Sargeant finished fourth in last season’s Formula 2 championship and comes up against a driver who managed to drag a terrible Williams to three points finishes last season.

Carlos Sainz may have beaten Charles Leclerc in 2021 but that was largely based on the misfortune of Leclerc. Last year, the Monegasque driver showed the gulf in talent between the two as he beat his teammate by 62 points. Nothing has changed to suggest anything will be different this season.

A lot has been made of the all-French lineup at Alpine, especially because of the alleged long-running feud between Esteban Ocon and Pierre Gasly. On track, the two drivers look remarkably evenly-matched, but Ocon has a lot more experience in the Alpine and even managed to beat Fernando Alonso last season, albeit thanks to a lot of reliability issues.

It would be one of the shocks of the season if Fernando Alonso didn’t outperform Lance Stroll at Aston Martin. The Spaniard is one of the most experienced and talented drivers on the grid and many would claim that the only reason Stroll is still in Formula 1 is because of his father owning the team he drives for. Stroll is solid on his day, but that day is rare and Alonso is on a completely different level.

In a throwback to 2019, Nico Hulkenberg is back in Formula 1 and joining Kevin Magnussen at Haas. The two are generally quite evenly matched and this one could come down to Hulkenberg taking a while to readjust back to life in Formula 1 after a few years largely out of the action. Magnussen impressed on his return as he finished 13th in the standings and we can expect more of the same from the Dane.

Oscar Piastri may be the new prodigal son of Formula 1 but it would be asking too much to expect him to waltz in and beat a driver as talented as Lando Norris. Norris has beaten Daniel Ricciardo by some margin over the last two seasons and the McLaren is a difficult car to adapt to.

George Russell was excellent in his first season at Mercedes and more of the same is expected of him, but realistically the main reason he beat Lewis Hamilton was due to Hamilton’s experimental setups at the start of the season as Mercedes searched for an answer to their season-ruining problems. Hamilton finished ahead of his teammate in nine of the final 14 races and will be prioritised over Russell if there is any chance of a title fight.

The two-time defending champion is one of, if not the, best driver on the grid and it’s almost inconceivable to think Sergio Perez can beat him over the course of the season. Verstappen demands priority and generally gets it from the Red Bull team, as we saw towards the end of last season. He beat his teammate by 149 points last season and another walkover is expected.

Nyck de Vries has been waiting for his chance in Formula 1 for a very long time and and has the maturity and talent to push Yuki Tsunoda close, but he doesn’t deserve to be favourite ahead of somebody with two seasons of Formula 1 under his belt. Tsunoda has his moments of madness but generally speaking he is a solid, if unspectacular, driver and should have enough to outperform de Vries this year at least.

Guanyu Zhou showed some moments of quality in his debut season last year but Valtteri Bottas was far ahead of him through almost the entire season. He finished ahead of Zhou in 13 of the 22 Grand Prix and finished on 49 points to Zhou’s six.

Ferrari looked almost on par with Red Bull at pre-season testing and the change in management will hopefully resolve some of the strategy errors which cost Charles Leclerc a real chance at the title last season.

If new Team Principal Fred Vasseur can add some competency to the Ferrari pitwall, Leclerc should be able to make a run at Max Verstappen if he can iron out the occasional moment of madness and even if he falls short a second-placed finish still pays out.