Eight for the drivers, seven for the team. These are the votes given by team principal Mattia Binotto to Carlos Sainz, Charles Leclerc and Scuderia Ferrari at the end of a 2021 Formula One season in which the Maranello team returned to the podium in the Constructors’ standings behind Mercedes and Red Bull, without however obtaining a victory, unlike other teams such as McLaren and Alpine, who were able to capitalize on their opportunity when Red Bull and Mercedes encountered issues and lost the top step of the podium in Monza and Budapest.
Scuderia Ferrari has not won a Grand Prix since Sebastian Vettel took first place in Singapore in 2019 and in terms of titles won, it has been since 2008 that the Italian side has not managed to take a world championship after the Constructors’ title won 13 years ago.
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A rather long period, that begins to recall the one experienced at the end of the second millennium which was interrupted only in 1999 when Ferrari won the Constructors ‘title 16 years after the one obtained in 1983 (at the level of the Drivers’ World Championship the wait was 21 years, from 1979 to 2000). Nicola Larini, a Ferrari driver at the beginning of the 90s, disagrees with the assessment expressed by Mattia Binotto:”
“This has been a mediocre year – the words of Nicola Larini interviewed by Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport – “Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen were from another planet, even beyond the value of their Mercedes and Red Bull cars, but Ferrari never gave the impression of being ready to take the opportunity, for example at Monza, where McLaren won. Five podiums in 22 races is way too little. Third place in the constructors was good but too many times Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz did not keep up with the AlphaTauri cars”. – he explained.
Nicola Larini, comparing the current moment to that experienced personally as a Ferrari driver, believes that the climate in Maranello is better than 30 years ago, even if the current regulation prohibiting tests does not allow the teams to catch up in a sudden way, despite having all the resources and the means to do so: “I was in Ferrari during the last negative moment which lasted many years, but the situation was worse, with a war between the chassis and engine departments, now the team seems compact to me. But in my day you could do a lot of tests so whoever had the most means emerged in the end. I carry Mattia Binotto in my heart, I remember him when he arrived as a young ‘engineer’ and I was delighted that he became head of the Sports Management” – Nicola Larini concluded.
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