Ferrari outside the top 10 at Imola: devastated drivers, never-ending crisis. Ferrari suffers a shocking double Q2 elimination at Imola.

This just won’t do—not like this! Ferrari has lived through one of the darkest pages in its history at Imola, on the circuit named after its founder. Both cars were eliminated from the top 10 and from the final round where pole position is decided: Charles Leclerc in eleventh and Hamilton in twelfth capture the image of an incredible day and a crisis that no one could have remotely imagined.

Just picture the face and thoughts of President John Elkann, who wanted this team, this structure, and enhanced it with the cherry on top: the greatest champion of all time, Lewis Hamilton. Imagine the face and thoughts of Piero Ferrari, the man who suffers the most, with the DNA of what is the most prestigious company in the world in his veins—now reduced in F1 to a supporting role because the car disappoints, progress is invisible, and the outlook is disheartening.

And yet, never before has Ferrari invested so much—in resources, in technicians recruited from other teams, in drivers. The excuses no longer hold. It is unacceptable to show up at Imola so unprepared, and it’s no longer time to postpone dreams and expectations indefinitely: a turning point is needed. The sooner it comes, the better. Because Fred Vasseur has said a worrying phrase: “Let’s focus on the future.” Yes, fine—but what future? With the same structure as today?

Now it’s up to the company’s top management to act, regardless of what happens in the Imola race, in front of a global audience of over 200,000 spectators—more than half of them Ferrari fans.

The list of what isn’t working in Maranello is too long to go through now, but it’s painful to see two champions like Leclerc and Hamilton starting from the sixth row and saying “sorry,” while teams like Aston Martin, Williams, and Alpine—by no means frontrunners—are ahead of the red cars simply because they’ve figured out how to make the tyres work, unlike the technicians at Ferrari.

All that remains is to hope (a term hopelessly overused when talking about Ferrari) for a comeback race, given the positive data from race pace simulations. But that would only be another consolation prize—one that no longer consoles anyone.

Up front, the usual Oscar Piastri is on pole position with McLaren, and Max Verstappen is just a tenth behind with Red Bull. On the second row are Russell with Mercedes and a slightly off-form Norris, who still has a McLaren that will make him a key player.

The start, with the braking into the Tamburello chicane, could decide everything while also offering spectacle, because Max Verstappen will definitely attack, and Piastri—as we’ve seen—isn’t the kind to give way.

We’ll enjoy the show—with a bitter taste in our mouths. Yes, what’s happened to Ferrari is truly too much, and there aren’t even words left to describe it.