Who needs enemies? - An Italian tragedy
Picture this… It is March 2022 and you’re a Ferrari fan. The car has been quick all of pre-season and Charles Leclerc completes a Grand Slam victory ahead of Carlos Sainz, after an epic battle with Max Verstappen, at the season opener in Bahrain… Life is good and this is finally going to be your year, right?... RIGHT!?!
Fast forward to the mid-season break and all your hopes and dreams have been smashed into a million pieces in typical Ferrari style. Max Verstappen is running away with the drivers’ championship and instead of challenging for the constructors’ championship, you’re fighting for second with Mercedes, who have been miles off the pace.
But how did it all go so wrong???
Advertisement
The simplest way to answer that question is that it is self-inflicted! But who has inflicted the most damage? The drivers, the team principal or the strategists. Let’s take a closer look at some of the incidents which have led the team from Maranello to this dark place.
THE FIRST SIGNS OF CRACKS
Before the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix (the fourth race of the season) in Ferrari’s backyard, Leclerc had been in the top two of every session so far.
It was no different at Imola as the Monegasque was right up on Verstappen’s gearbox throughout the weekend, narrowly missing out on pole for the Sprint Race, which Max again won ahead of Charles.
Come race day, the pressure was on in cold and wet conditions, and Leclerc got off to a bad start, starting on Inters on the worst side of the grid, dropping from second to fourth. From then on, Leclerc was on the back foot. His first stop yielded no positive shift in the race dynamics but after his second stop, he was on the charge and hunting down Perez for second with the hope of catching Max at the front of the pack.
But then on lap 54, disaster struck as the old impulsive Leclerc reared his head, taking too much curb at the exit of turn 1-15 chicane which sent him spinning into the wall and costing him pieces of his front wing.
Leclerc limped back to the pits for a new front-end and a fresh set of tyres before rejoining in ninth.
Despite picking up three places before the end of the race to finish in sixth, the first signs that the pressure of the title fight might be too much for Charles to handle were apparent for all to see.
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
The Ferraris had been so quick in 2022 that questions started swirling about how long it would be before their engines begin to feel the heat and the Circuit de Barcelona held all the answers.
Gunning for his third win of the season, Leclerc was in complete control of the Spanish Grand Prix which would have hurt even more when he was forced to retire, with the team citing a turbo and MGU-H failure for his departure from proceedings.
HOMETOWN HEX CONTINUES
Most drivers who are lucky enough to experience it, look forward to the comforts a home Grand Prix brings, but for Leclerc, his hometown of Monaco has been a scene of nightmares.
With a record of 18th, DNF and DNS in his three appearances at the street track, one can only image that Charles was either dreading his homecoming or heading home with great purpose and a point to prove.
Leclerc put his Ferrari on pole for the second year in succession at the race, which would be delayed before eventually beginning with a rolling start behind a safety car due to a torrential downpour.
Leclerc led into the first round of pit-stops, where he, Perez and Verstappen all pitted for inters, leaving Sainz to lead the race on full wets.
With their cars in the lead, the Ferrari brains trust inexplicably decided to undo all their drivers’ hard work by botching their pit strategy. Sainz was called in for a set of slicks in response to the undercut by Red Bull, but the strategists decided to call Charles in as well before rescinding their request after he had already entered the pit-lane.
Leclerc was a sitting duck, having to wait for his teammate to leave the box first before waiting further for his tyres to arrive. In the end, Sainz came out behind Perez and Leclerc behind Verstappen, which effectively handed Perez his first victory in Monaco and added to the list of reasons why Charles hates to go home.
BLOW ME
On pole for the sixth time this season in Azerbaijan, Leclerc would have hoped that his misfortune was behind him, but pole was all that Leclerc would leave the Baku International Circuit with.
Leclerc surrendered the lead of the race to Perez at turn 1 after he locked up at the end of the straight.
Leclerc’s day went from bad to worse as on lap 21, the Ferrari started to spew smoke from its rear end, sending Leclerc for an early shower.
To add to Ferrari’s misery, it was a double DNF as Carlos Sainz had retired from the race with a hydraulics issue on lap eight.
HEAD SCRATCHER
The British Grand Prix was chaotic from the start, with Zhou Guanyu’s horrific accident causing a 45-minute stoppage.
Sainz lead after the race restarted and he and Verstappen exchanged the lead before a piece of debris caused a massive drop off in pace to the Red Bull, which left Leclerc to fight Sainz for the lead.
Leclerc was the faster of the two, but the team did nothing to swap the drivers, instead they pitted Sainz to give Leclerc some fresh air. When Leclerc pitted, he again came out behind Sainz and with Hamilton running away at the front, Matteo Binotto asked Sainz to move aside for Leclerc.
The moment of disaster, at least for Leclerc, came when Esteban Ocon brought out a safety car and Ferrari elected to only pit Sainz, with Perez and Hamilton also electing to go on to new tyres.
Leclerc was effectively a sitting duck at the front of the field when the race resumed and in no time, he dropped from first to fourth despite putting on an almighty fight.
Despite getting Sainz his maiden victory, Ferrari missed out on a golden opportunity to secure a one-two which would have seen Leclerc close the gap to Verstappen in the drivers’ championship as well as the team close in on Red Bull.
BRAIN FART
Leclerc has sometimes been guilty of the being the architect of his own downfall and at the Circuit Paul Ricard, it was again the case.
Again, starting from pole, Leclerc sped off into the distance and was a shoe in for a second consecutive victory, having won in Austria two week earlier, but he tripped himself up and ended his own race.
Responding to pressure from Verstappen trying the undercut, Leclerc dropped the rear and sent himself spinning into the tyre barrier from which he could not reverse.
A second DNF for Charles in 2022 and even more ground lost to Verstappen, who went on to win the race.
COMPLACENCY TRAP
So dominant were Ferrari in Hungary, the final race before the mid-season break, that it seems that complacency was their ultimate undoing at the Hungaroring.
Not only did George Russell snatch pole position from out of thin air but Ferrari again threw away a one-two finish with some diabolical strategy calls.
Starting on the mediums while those around them started on the softs seem to pay some dividends in the early running as they were able to manage the tyres well and run comfortably behind Russell, with the hope of undercutting the Merc at the first round of stops.
That didn’t quite pan out as Russell retained the lead, but Leclerc did manage to get ahead of Sainz and began to hunt down Russell.
The problem for Ferrari was that they went on the mediums again at their stop and would need to either run an extremely long stint and go on to softs for the final stages of the race or stop early and hope the hard tyres would perform a miracle in performance which they showed no signs of doing.
In their infinite wisdom, the ‘smart people’ at Ferrari decided to bring Charles in from the lead of the race and put him on to the hard tyre. And as predicted it was a disaster, as the Monegasque struggled on the white-walled tyre which made it no effort at all for Verstappen and Russell to waltz past him. Leclerc dived into the pits for a third time to get a set of softs, but by then it was too late as he came out in sixth, where he would ultimately finish the race.
INCONSISTENT CARLOS
Despite picking up his maiden victory at Silverstone and finishing on the podium five times in 2022, Carlos Sainz’s inconsistency coupled with four DNFs (three of which were his own fault) and holding up his teammate has hampered Ferrari’s progress as much as his good results have driven them forward.
It seems that Ferrari have no clear hierarchy for their drivers and no clue as to what a good strategy looks like and, given their gaps to the Red Bulls in the drivers’ and constructors’ championships, it has cost them dearly.
If they are to come out on the other side of the summer break stronger and if they want to mount a serious challenge for the titles, they desperately need to get a handle of their issues for the sake of the team, their drivers and their faithful Tifosi.
The Belgian Grand Prix is where the action kicks off again and Spa provides a good opportunity for the men in red to begin their journey back to the top.
BELGIAN GRAND PRIX BROADCAST DETAILS
Friday, 26 July
FP1 | 13:55 | SS Motorsport
FP2 | 16:45 | SS Motorsport
Saturday, 27 July
FP3 | 12:45 | SS Motorsport
Qualifying | 15:50 | SS Motorsport
Sunday, 28 July
Race | 14:55 | SS Motorsport
Advertisement