By finishing the 2020 Formula 1 championship in sixth place, Scuderia Ferrari recorded its worst season since 1980. Last year, the Maranello team managed to score 19 podiums finishes, including three wins, between Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc. This year, the Italian side has achieved a total of only three podiums.
Regulation nightmare
In the final part of the 2019 Formula 1 season, Scuderia Ferrari had a run of six races where one of its cars started on pole position. That ended at the United States Grand Prix, when a rules clarification meant the engine had to be modified. Regular FIA (Federation Internationale de l’Automobile) checks hadn’t found anything illegal, but the changes reduced the team’s ability to race at the same level through the remaining two races.
Ferrari maintains its innocence but, during the winter break that year, the team reached a private settlement with the FIA over its engine — the details of which have not being made public. More engine rule changes prior to the beginning of the 2020 season also affected Ferrari more than any other engine supplier. It was recorded at the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix in August that the cars were, on average, 10 km/h (6 mph) slower than in 2019. Ferrari’s incredible qualifying pace in 2019 brought Vettel and Leclerc an average starting position of 4.3 and 4.4 respectively, with average race finishes, excluding retirements, of 4.6 and 3.8.
As mentioned, in 2020, their average starting positions and race finishes were far worse just one year later. Yet Ferrari’s standards should be higher than that. Fortunately for the team, it has been able to invest in the 2021 car and engine before the new budget cap is introduced next year. To create a more level playing-field, and to end the dominance of a single team — Mercedes — the cap begins at $145 million for 2021, $140 million for 2022 before staying at $135 million for 2023-25.
For Ferrari, a team that reportedly spends $400 million per year, it has been imperative it prepares for 2021 during the 2020 season: “[Ferrari] can hopefully make as many gains as it can and use its maximum resources up until obviously the deadline at the end of this year,” says Senior writer for Formula1.com Lawrence Barretto – “From a power unit perspective, that’s great. On the aerodynamics side, it’s going to be slightly more challenging for them to make big gains because of the relative stability and regulations from this year into next year.”
Leadership and stability
In any other year, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto might have been fired for such a disastrous season. But, so far, the 51-year-old has retained the confidence of a team that, since 2014, has had three team principals — a remarkable turnover for a team which, prior to 2014, had had only two team principals in 21 years.
Former Ferrari chairman and chief executive Sergio Marchionne, who took over in 2014, applied constant pressure to his principals: “The pressure was such that you had always your mobile [phone] next to you, day and night, because if he was sending you a WhatsApp, you had to reply within 30 seconds,” Binotto told F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast about life under Marchionne.
Louis Camilleri succeeded Marchionne after the latter’s untimely death in late 2018.
In the same podcast, Mattia Binotto says of Camilleri: “He understands the importance of stability, he understands the importance of investing.” But the future is now uncertain after Camilleri resigned with immediate effect ahead of the final Grand Prix weekend of the season to be replaced by chairman John Elkann on an interim basis.
A new start
In 2021, Ferrari will be hoping new driver Sainz will help the recovery. Barretto says the team has a “leader” in Sainz, who replaces Vettel at Ferrari after two years with McLaren: “He’s going to move to Italy and spend as much time as he can at the factory and he’s going to embed himself in there,” says Barretto. “I think when they see that hunger, they’re going to want to try and build on that.”
Ferrari is not a team accustomed to scrapping in the midfield of the grid, something which Duncan describes as “depressing to see.”
A team that should be focused on winning and competing at the front has been reduced to hopes for the future. Barretto isn’t as confident that huge improvements will happen in 2021. Instead, the regulation overhaul in 2022 could be key to Ferrari’s return to the top: “Because the [2021] regulations don’t give you a chance to go wild, it’s going to be difficult for Ferrari to make a jump back up to the front of the field. And I imagine that they are quite realistic about the fact that while they can make gains next year, the big gains will come in 2022.”
