Ferrari should not return to the old ways of pointing the finger and blame for the negative results and sacking staff, because this would only lead to a return of a “culture of fear”, according to world renowned F1 expert Mark Hughes.
Following a great start to the 2022 Formula One campaign for the Maranello team, with Charles Leclerc taking two race victories after the first three events this season, things began to go wrong for the Italian side one Sunday after another: this meant that Charles Leclerc, who after the Australian Grand Prix had a 34-point lead in the Drivers’ standings, now trails Max Verstappen by 80 points, as Ferrari’s prospects of winning a first Drivers’ championship since 2007 have been dashed due to several unfortunate events.
Charles Leclerc alone has lost more than 100 points due to power unit issues, grid penalties, wrong strategy calls from the Maranello pit wall and a few mistakes made by him, while his team-mate Carlos Sainz encountered similar problems, which helped Red Bull create a solid gap in the Constructors’ standings ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.
With Red Bull able to capitalize in at least five races on race wins that Ferrari have thrown away, the Maranello team and the Monégasque need a miracle to recover the deficit to Max Verstappen and Red Bull in the last nine races of the 2022 Formula One season.
A lot of fans and part of the media have called for heads to roll at Ferrari, with Ralf Schumacher stating after the Hungarian Grand Prix that he would be surprised if team principal Mattia Binotto was not removed from his role after the series of mistakes and issues from the first part of the championship.
Mark Hughes, however, feels that would mean a return to the old way of doing things, an approach that did not seem efficient for Ferrari in the past, when we could often see a policy of finger-pointing and firing that did not bring anything positive to the team.
“Sacking the guy in charge is what Ferrari used to do, apart from in the Ross Brawn/Jean Todt era, and it led to a sequence of the team falling ever further and further back and the whole place operating under a culture of fear,” Mark Hughes said in discussion during the ‘The Race’ F1 podcast.
“What Binotto has done is change that. He maybe hasn’t yet managed to combine that with taking on, accepting and eradicating weaknesses without making it fearful for the people there. He doesn’t want that fear culture and he seems to have got rid of that very successfully. He’s also overseen the most technically impressive Ferrari for many, many years. So I think he’s got a lot more right than he’s got wrong. But it’s frustrating for Ferrari fans if you keep seeing the same things going wrong over and over again when it’s for the same reason. If you can combine what Binotto’s brought with a little bit more of the culture we see at the teams that have been the top teams for a long time, like Mercedes and Red Bull, with regard to how you go about eradicating weaknesses, then I think it will be an absolutely formidable team. To sack the man in charge because things have gone wrong would be absolutely the wrong way of thinking.” – F1 expert Mark Hughes explained.
At the same time, other F1 pundits such as Marc Surer feel that the Maranello team’s F1 strategists should lose their jobs as they have made one too many poor tactical decisions during the first 13 races in 2022 so far.
While everyone is aware that working for Ferrari implies a huge pressure nobody ever wants to operate in a company where one error could mean losing your job, it is true that the Maranello team has waisted so many opportunities this year and has not proven able to capitalize on the speed and pace of the F1-75 project, a car that often was the fastest in the first part of the season.
Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto said several times his staff is still learning – specifically, working on managing the pressure and learning how to make the best tactical decisions while fighting for the race victories once again and learning how to win. But during this process, Scuderia Ferrari have basically threw away a title challenge that should have at least lasted until the final rounds of the season.
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