Scuderia Ferrari monopolized the media scene of the Turkish Grand Prix, overshadowing the victory of an excellent Valtteri Bottas who returned to the top step of the podium one year after his last win. The Maranello team’s strategic choice ended up wrong after Ferrari decided to leave Charles Leclerc on the track, thus not recalling the Monegasque to the pits to use mount new intermediate tires as the vast majority of the teams opted instead.
A choice on which many Ferrari fans have pointed their finger, criticizing the Italian side for not being reactive in the crucial stages of the race. Yet Ferrari did well to try, attemting to win a race that has been desperately missing for over two years. It has now become an obsession. In the past, the finger has been pointed at a team that never dared to take risks, that never had strategic inventiveness. Yet when this trend change occurs, one is immediately ready to criticize: not trying to dig deep into why Ferrari decided to take the gamble, rather than following the rest of the group.
Perhaps because in Maranello they understood that between a third and a fourth place, in this precise historical moment, practically nothing changes. Among other things, Ferrari is the only one among the Top 5 without a race win in the 2021 Formula One season. That chance that was exploited by other teams, such as McLaren and Alpine, while Ferrari has tried to take advantage at Istanbul Park with the gamble that like a coin has a double face: it can go well but it can also go wrong. And in this case luck wasn’t on Ferrari’s side.
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Situations like the one in Istanbul are better than the superficiality shown in Monte Carlo, where Charles Leclerc’s car was not inspected in detail ahead of a race which the Monegasque driver could easily won by starting from pole position. Those are the inadmissible situations that must not be repeated for a team with a blazon, history and tradition like Ferrari. And in that case the criticisms, they are all legitimate and dutiful.
We have all been critics of Ferrari’s management last year, but this year Ferrari is showing signs of recovery in small steps. There have been mistakes, for heaven’s sake, but so have the improvements: it is enough to make a comparison between 2020 and 2021 to realize this. The new engine, fitted to both SF21s in the last two rounds, also gave excellent feedback. And it was very important, considering that the power unit was one of the Maranello team’s issues.
Ferrari doesn’t have a magic wand, but they are certainly trying to remedy the mistakes made in the recent past. And there have been several. At the moment, nothing else can be asked of them. In this 2021 it is only important to do better than 2020. Another story is 2022, where Ferrari will play a large part of its future credibility.
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