30% of Teams On the Formula 1 Grid Have Already Given Up On the 2021 Season

So much for the 2021 Formula 1 season for at least three teams, as 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.

Williams, Alfa Romeo and Haas know they can't compete in 2021. That's 30% of the teams (six of the 20 cars on the grid) now turning their attention away from current season's effort.

"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."

It's a similar story at Alfa Romeo, with technical boss Jan Monchaux saying 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."

Monchaux said the Swiss-based team, which used to race 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."

Neither Haas, Alfa Romeo nor Williams were able to score a point in the season-opening race in Bahrain. Alpine, which made a high-profile offseason signing with the addition of free agent Fernando Alonso, was also scoreless in the opener.

Formula 1 returns to action April 16-18 at Imola, Italy.