Why Ferrari is not worried by defeat in Emilia Romagna GP at Imola. Why Ferrari is not worried by Imola outcome.

The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was a race with high expectations for Scuderia Ferrari, but it ended up a chastening weekend for the Maranello team. Ferrari was confident the Imola track would suit characteristics of its F1-75 car even more than Albert Park circuit did, as Charles Leclerc secured his second victory in the first three rounds of the 2022 Formula 1 season, but sadly it proved rivals Red Bull were indeed faster at Imola, regardless of the team and drivers’ mistakes during the weekend.

The Italian side’s problem stared on the first day, when Carlos Sainz missed the chance to begin from the first or second row, due to a crash in qualifying. The Spanish driver had a solid comeback Sprint race and reached fourth place but both he and team mate Charles Leclerc started on the more slippery side of the grid for Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and and lost several places off the line.

Carlos Sainz’s race ended after just a few coreners, when he was hit and sent into the gravel by the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo, which marked another DNF for Carlos, after his early exit in Australia. Charles Leclerc was left to fight the Red Bull cars of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez by his own and was running in third, but as he attempted to recover the gap to P2, he made a mistake by taking too much kerb at Variante Alta and spun into the wall. Charles was able to continue the Imola race, but could only recover to sixth.

So while Scuderia Ferrari – watched on by chairman John Elkann in its home race – left Imola still gripping the constructors’ championship lead, Red Bull are now just 11 points adrift, ahead of the Miami Grand Prix, which takes place this week at the Miami International Autodrome in Miami Gardens, Florida. The Imola weekend was the first time the Maranello team showed a big chink in their 2022 armour. But is it the first sign of a Ferrari challenge that initially sparkles before quickly fizzling out – or just a bad weekend that is not set to repeat itself?

Since the Formula One points system changed more than a decade ago, the Italian side has led the way after the first four races of a season just one time before this year, in 2018 when Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen headed Mercedes by four before, eventually going on to lose by 84 at the end of the year. This is only the fourth time in 13 years that they have managed more than 100 points in the first four races – and their second-highest tally (they scored 136 after four in 2017). Not once during that time, though, have they gone on to win the constructors’ championship.

In the 2022 Formula 1 season, things are different. Ferrari’s prospects of continuing the strong form shown in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Australia and sustaining a real title challenge against Red Bull – with Imola just a blip – are much higher than four years ago. With the decision to shift all resources into the 2022 Formula One car from the early stages of the previous campaign, while also and making the most of the extra wind tunnel allocation as a result of the poor season in 2020, Scuderia Ferrari have seized their opportunity and fought back. Their tally of 124 points so far is just seven shy of their total end-of-year 2020 haul. And it is 38% of the points they managed last year, with 19 races with a possible 416 points still on the table.

The F1-75 challenger remains a car which can perform well immediately after coming out from the pits, which proved essential in the first three races. Ferrari are therefore able to understand the package and how to get the best out of it despite the limited time for preparing the race weekends and despite not introducing any important updates since the car took to the Circuit de Catalunya circuit for the first pre-season testing session, they are still fighting for victories. As opposed to Ferrari, Red Bull brought a heavily revised car to pre-season testing Bahrain, and have also introduced new components at each round, including small bits to the last event in Imola in order to reduce the weight of the car.

For now, Ferrari have been working behind the scenes and intend to bring a raft of updates as the campaign progresses. The Maranello technicians are confident they can do so with the knowledge the correlation between the trcircuit ack and their wind tunnel data and CFD work is very strong. The Italian side is also starting to reap the benefits of a new state-of-the-art simulator, that they’ve had up to speed since the start of the year.

However, the current championship has not been without its frustrations – steering issues on both Saturday and Sunday in Australia played a role in a difficult weekend for Carlos Sainz, for example – but they have been few and far between. And that is an impressive feat considering Ferrari haven not consistently been a title contender since the 2000s. “That’s why we keep saying Mercedes and Red Bull are favourites, because we haven’t been in a title fight for a while,” said Carlos Sainz after the race at the Albert Park circuit – “That’s why we’re super-cautious – we’re maybe lacking that little bit of experience.” – he added.

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But the more Ferrari fight at the front, the more they will get used to making decisions under high pressure. Even if the midst of a difficult race in Imola, Ferrari were bold in pitting Charles Leclerc for soft tyres later in the race, successfully forcing Red Bull to take the bait and bring Sergio Perez in. The result was that Charles Leclerc almost caught the Mexican and the prospects of a second place finish were more than possible in the final laps of the Imola race. The unfortunate outcome with Charles’ spin can at times happen, but Ferrari at least put themselves in the position to attack.

Those major decisions made under pressure while challenging at the top have considered a weakness of theirs in recent years. And of course there is still work to do. On the lap Carlos Sainz crashed in qualifying at the Imola circuit, having completed a lap that was comfortably enough to progress, his engineer was repeatedly telling him to push. That’s no excuse, of course, for the mistake the Spanish driver made when he spun and hit the wall, but perhaps his approach on that lap would have been different had he not had that repeated call.

It will be interesting to see how Scuderia Ferrari respond to the Imola defeat and perform in the Miami Grand Prix, which is an unknown venue for everybody. In years gone by, such a loss would have sent them into an uncontrollable downward spiral. But the atmosphere is very different now, under the stewardship of boss Mattia Binotto.