Talking about Ferrari is not easy these days. The Prancing Horse team has taken a clear step backwards compared to the 2024 Formula 1 season, and perhaps this is the point that is putting the entire Maranello environment into crisis. The problem is not about disappointing expectations, nor about not being able to fight for the title. The critical issue lies in witnessing a regression compared to last year.
Let’s be clear. The regression we mean must be understood in terms of strength relative to rivals. All teams, including Ferrari, have produced a car that performs better than the one seen in Abu Dhabi, but this development process has yielded fewer results compared to McLaren, obviously, but also compared to Mercedes and Red Bull.
At the end of last season, it was almost always just the papaya team and the Italian team fighting for victories, whereas now, even if not at the early-2024 levels, Max Verstappen is once again consistently fighting at the front (only the second driver at Milton Keynes is struggling), and Mercedes often finishes on the podium and is now Ferrari’s number one rival. The dramatic aspect could precisely be this: a thought that creeps into the mind worse than a woodworm — how can a team move from being the fourth force to second, while the team that fought for the world championship until the last corner is now so far behind? Sure, the disqualifications in China weigh on the standings, but the problem remains.
There is a lot, too much confusion at Ferrari. Before updates, a method is needed
We made a long introduction, but it’s necessary to understand Ferrari’s internal psychology. There is a lot of confusion. Sometimes the cars are competitive on Friday, then they are not on Saturday and Sunday. Other times, they are not fast on Friday, unimpressive on Saturday, and then strong on Sunday, as happened with Leclerc in Jeddah. In some cases, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton seem to perform similarly; at other times, their competitiveness levels differ too much, and Saudi Arabia, again, clearly showed this. And worryingly, no clear and precise explanation is provided.
There is disorder, a lot of disorder. In this context, what is the point of bringing updates? From the outside, it looks like trial and error. In Jeddah, developments concerning the floor, diffuser, and rear wing arrived. Were there any real steps forward? Unfortunately not. Luckily, Norris started from tenth and Leclerc managed to finish on the podium, but if Lando Norris had had a normal race, even considering Charles’s amazing performance, it would have been very difficult to achieve the same result.
Beating Mercedes is already a good thing, but you cannot fight disorder with even more disorder. We would like to see a cleaner approach, at least a method. Hearing the drivers disappointed with the performance, not fully understanding the reasons why, and on the other hand learning that new updates will arrive at Imola, does not seem to us to be going in the right direction.
