Two years without a win are enough to… crack the Ferrari myth? Obviously not, because the Prancing Horse brand in its long history in Formula 1 has experienced many difficult moments.
The Scuderia has lost the scepter of the most popular team in F1, being overtaken for the first time by McLaren and Red Bull. And it is curious that all this happens while the stock market trend expresses excellent performances, as if the disappointing performances on the track do not in the least condition the stock market linked, instead, to a dream product that in the world of luxury continues to be magically attractive with exclusive supercars and a range of innovative and modern marketing activities.
Yet, analyzing the data that emerged from the Global F1 Fan Survey 2021, the survey that Motorsport Network and Formula 1 carried out together with Nielsen Sport, some red alarms must have been triggered in Maranello.
The respondents were 167,300 readers of the Motorsport site around the world who responded from 187 different countries over a five-week period, between September and October, during which four GPs took place.
Ferrari has always been the “beacon” of the top car championship and it was only in 2008 that it felt the competition from McLaren, making it clearly the most popular team in the five continents at each survey.
The drop in consensus recorded by Maranello compared to 2017 data is disturbing, because Ferrari has dropped from a popularity of 32% of respondents to 18%, while Red Bull, just to give another example, has been on a steady rise since 2008.
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Mattia Binotto, team principal of the Scuderia, was asked to comment on these numbers at the United States GP weekend, firmly claiming that “… looking at the stands of the racetracks I didn’t get the same feeling because the red color remains very visible and also how we hear the cheering of our fans everywhere ”.
The official explanation si reasonable, but the data must make us think. It must be said that Ferrari also shares the fall of Mercedes which dropped from second to fourth place with a popularity that fell from 16.2% to a more mysterious 11.9%: the dominating team since 2014 is evidently perceived as ” unpleasant ”for its technical superiority, although this year it is put on the ropes by Max Verstappen and Red Bull.
While McLaren has garnered an impressive + 29.5% in popularity compared to 15.8% in 2017 indicating a resounding relaunch, Ferrari, which has always enjoyed global support, now sees its leadership reduced, with unchallenged supremacy in France, Spain, Turkey and, of course, in Italy.
While we can agree that the strategy of the Maranello team was to maintain a very low profile in this difficult relaunch phase after the 2020 flop, it is also legitimate to wonder how much the “power unit case” that broke out at the end may have weighed on the collective image of 2019, when Ferrari then signed that secret pact with the FIA to put a tombstone on suspicions of engine irregularities, which have never been demonstrated.
Keeping your ears low in terms of communication must not have helped at all, so much so that the two drivers also paid the consequences: Charles Leclerc is only in sixth place, preceded by Sebastian Vettel, the jubilated Ferrari driver, and followed by Fernando Alonso , the forty-year-old who returned to Formula 1 after a long stop.
Carlos Sainz does not even enter the top 10, although in his first year in the Scuderia he is achieving excellent results. In this field the supremacy belongs to Max Verstappen who can count on the rising orange tide. The Dutchman is followed by Lando Norris, the big surprise of this survey: the English driver is liked by young people and women, while Lewis Hamilton is third, caught in the grip of the two McLaren drivers.
Lewis remains the undisputed idol of the over 45s, but does not “poke” the new generations who are, instead, the main strength of the survey given that the teenagers between 16 and 24 years old who answered the questions were 34%, with an increase of 26% as compared to 2017.
Is Ferrari capable of opening a dialogue with young people, or is it too closed in on itself? The myth must be nurtured, because the new generations will be the future buyers of Maranello’s dream cars and a posting could cost them dearly.
Carlos Sainz, very lucidly, pointed out that the image of the Scuderia that emerged from the episode of Drive to Survive, the Netflix series that had a great success on the young people who later became F1 fans, is not too much adhering to what Ferrari represents in the world of GPs. It is an aspect that should not be overlooked at all, because F1 cannot afford a Scuderia that is not the “sun” of the sport.
Will the alarm bell be sounded in Maranello or will a few victories in 2022 be enough to wipe out every cloud?
