Sunday 24 April 2022. This is the date that coincides with the systemic division of Scuderia Ferrari’s 2022 Formula 1 season. There is a before and after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Imola circuit for the Italian side. In the three races that preceded the Imola event, everything went smoothly for Ferrari: the F1-75 immediately proved to be the reference point of the 2022 grid and Charles Leclerc had capitalized on the performance consistency of his car with two race wins and a second place in the first three events, that had given shape to a more than brilliant ranking.
On the other hand, at Red Bull, the problems had emerged overwhelmingly with an RB18 struggling with some reliability problems. The victory in Jeddah was secured more as a result of Max Verstappen’s driving skills rather than for the strength of a car that he had struggled in the corners, but took advantage of its biggest ability: the top speed, which at the time was drastically higher than the F1-75. Since then, Ferrari reduced the top speed deficit thanks to a new rear wing, introduced at the Silverstone circuit in the British Grand Prix.
When Formula 1 arrived in Imola, something stopped. Ferrari appeared almost intolerant to its home air, so much so as to mark a black weekend in which Carlos Sainz retired in the early stages of the race, while Charles Leclerc made the first, serious, mistake of the 2022 season. An episode which marked the comeback of Max Verstappen, who will be able to count on a solid 80-point advantage over Charles Leclerc when Formula 1 resumes after the summer break with the Belgian Grand Prix. Ahead of the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the Monegasque driver was leading the standings with 46 points over the Dutchman. Today the situation has turned around in an almost unbelievable way.
After Imola, the momentum radically changed in favor of Red Bull which – and this is rather ironic, given the fact that the Austrian team has almost never shown that it has the best car this year. Driving errors fairly equally distributed between Charles and Carlos, strategies bordering on madness and certainly beyond any coherent logic (Monaco, Silverstone, Budapest the most shining examples of the confusion from the Ferrari pit wall) and the reliability of a power unit that is as powerful as it is fragile, downsized the expectations of the glorious Italian team. At a certain point, through its main exponent (Mattia Binotto), Ferrari began to revise its hopes for the world championship.
This came after Mattia Binotto, on 17 February, with the occasion of the presentation of the F1-75, had openly alluded to the two titles as the only and primary objective for Ferrari in a championship marked by major regulation changes that, according to the latest updates confirmed by Mohammed Ben Sulayem, is still in the process of finding a stable regulation. But this is another topic that we will address later.
The fall suffered by Ferrari would suggest, it is a question of logic, a change of pace. An operational remodeling that should be made where necessary. Starting from the reliability issue that Maranello continues to face with those short-term temporary solutions which were announced by Mattia Binotto immediately after the Spanish GP and which instead continue to affect the F1-75 cars. A definitive solution will be implemented in view of the coming year, as confirmed by the Ferrari boss.
To date, the Prancing Horse’s engineers limit themselves to guaranteeing less mileage for the power units with a rotation of the components. Which means penalties will continue to arrive because many components are at the limit. Others, however, have largely breached that limit. Already in Belgium, Ferrari could introduce a new hybrid unit, generating yet another start from the back of the grid for Charles Leclerc. For now, this remains an unconfirmed hypotheses, but it is based on a solid logical pillar.
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And this is also what is allowing Mercedes, despite the performance gap that has now become clear, to remain close behind Ferrari in the Constructors championship. But the change of pace could easily be made on two points that have been objectively badly managed: strategic vision of the races and management of the driver line-up, by clearly identifying a first guide who could try to stem the overwhelming power of Max Verstappen and his very effective Red Bull team.
But it seems that none of this will happen. The approach seen for the first thirteen GPs this year will be repeated in the last nine races of the 2022 championship, according to Mattia Binotto himself.
“There is nothing that needs to change” – explained the Ferrari team principal at the end of the disastrous Hungarian GP – “I think it is always a question of trust, learning, experience, ability to build. But if I look again at the balance sheet of the first part of the season, there is no reason why we should change. I think we just have to understand what happened and face the matters, trying to be competitive, as we have done so far in 12 races. There is no reason why we won’t be competitive at the next GP. “
“We are all winning and losing together, Hungary was not one of the best races, but I think there was a lot of potential. I think we need to focus first on the reason for the lack of speed, face it and come back even stronger “.
Good intentions but probably insufficient to give a real turning point to the world championship this season. Acting in the same way that prevailed from March to August may not be fruitful given the results. Ferrari should have the courage to face tough, unpopular choices, but necessary at this point. The story of the young team is genuinely redundant. Professionals like Inaki Rueda, one of the main responsable for unsuccessful choices and decisions, have been in the saddle for a long time. Despite repeated mistakes.
Nobody asks for a complete restructuring, nor changes like those seen in past years. The principle of the guillotine and the rolling heads did not bring benefits in the previous seasons. It would be necessary to integrate the line-ups and improve the procedures, especially under stress.
To pass the idea that everything proceeds in a normal growth process, as Mattia Binotto does, is a conceptual error that leads to the reiteration of ineffective dynamics. Ferrari has enormous human capital and technical potential that must be channeled. This should be done at any cost.
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