The world titles may not have been possible for Scuderia Ferrari this season, but Scuderia Ferrari carried that mindset during their fight with McLaren for third place in the Formula 1 Constructor Standings.
While Mercedes and Red Bull were involved in an epic title fight which ended with the controversial last lap moment in Abu Dhabi, behind them the Italian side and McLaren had their own intense battle to finish ‘best of the rest’. In the end Scuderia Ferrari won the duel by collecting 323.5 points across the championship to fend off McLaren by a strong margin of 48.5 points.
The Maranello team is now focused on the 2022 F1 season when they hope to once again become title contenders again, but in the mean time, they used that scrap with McLaren as a way to ready themselves for what they hope is to come. Interviewed by Motorsport-Total.com about the outcome of the current championship, Scuderia Ferrari racing director Laurent Mekies explained:
“It’s not what we want, but that’s normal. Because we are a racing team. We are Scuderia Ferrari, and if anyone is satisfied with third place, then something is wrong. What I can say is that we treated this year’s fight as if it were about the championship. We know how valuable every single opportunity and every single point is and how much you have to adapt and develop on race weekends where you are confronted with the unknown, be it new tracks or difficult weather conditions. So we saw this as a fight for the championship, even though we know we’re not fast enough to actually fight for the championship. We have made progress and are convinced of the direction we have taken. More steps are needed for the next fight, but we think we’ll get there in time.” – he added.
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Scuderia Ferrari suffered an alarming drop between the 2019 and 2020 seasons, going from contending for race victories to scrapping in the midfield to fight for just a few points. Their progress then to become midfield leaders in such a short space of time is impressive, with the Scuderia also claiming two pole positions this year, those coming back-to-back in Monaco and Baku, courtesy of Charles Leclerc.
And key to that prorgress Mekies said was sticking together as a team, and then using McLaren as the “indicator” for how far they had truly come.
“The first is to stick together in difficult situations, even if they are situations we have put ourselves in, as was the case last year,” said Mekies of how Ferrari escaped their 2020 predicament. And then we had to take up the fight against McLaren, which in turn was a good indicator of how far you can recover from the past, where the current level is and whether you are able to make it this far. There were some big gaps [to McLaren], like in Monza and Sochi, but the team has always stayed very much with itself and has taken the approach of taking the bad day, learning from it and coming back stronger. McLaren is a very good team. They are also a very strong racing team and it’s good that we were able to fight this fight until the last race.” – he added.
As for their title ambitions going forward, Mekies said Ferrari are aware of “the gap that still exists to the fight at the top”, and so the team must still “improve significantly in all areas”.
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