Max Verstappen arrives in Hungary, scene of the thirteenth Grand Prix of the season, with a 63-point lead over Charles Leclerc. In Australia, the Monegasque had 46 points more than the Dutchman. What has Ferrari lost along the way? Traditionally, since the glorious era of Michael Schumacher and the five crowns, the Scuderia has always defeated itself. While the rival almost never fails – and even less so a relentless Verstappen -, the team from Maranello have offered this year a repertoire of errors (reliability, pit stops and bad strategies) unbecoming of a team that aspires to be champion.
Nor is his favorite driver, Leclerc, without fault. “I don’t deserve the title with mistakes like that” he blurted out in a fit of honesty in France, after crashing into the guards while leading the race, pressured by Verstappen. The point is that between his own failures and the fragility of his car, the Monegasque has added 54 points in the last five grand prix while Verstappen has accumulated double (108).
too many missed opportunities
In Monaco, a clumsy strategy left him without a podium and in Barcelona and Baku, Leclerc saw the victory vanish due to breakdowns when he was rolling in the lead. At Imola he finished sixth after suffering an accident and at Silverstone, the team brought in Sainz with the safety car when Charles was first, a calculation that did not go according to plan and instead of protecting the Monegasque, it was the Spaniard who climbed to the top of the podium, while his partner finished fourth.
Leclerc could not even savor his victory in Austria with ease as the accelerator got stuck and he had to play the last laps on the brink of a ‘heart attack’. The Red Bull car has also had problems of youth, but Verstappen’s consistency is unquestionable. The current champion accumulates two zeros due to breakdown and seven victories. A devastating efficiency. On the contrary, Leclerc, ‘mister poleman’, has started at the front of the grid seven times and his wins are reduced to three: Bahrain, Australia and Austria. And all this considering that Ferrari recognizes that this season it has a winning car, at the same level as Red Bull and even superior for performance in many circuits.
Sainz, another ‘victim’
Either Carlos Sainz you can be satisfied with how things are going in Maranello. In his first season in red he finished fifth, the ‘best of the rest’ after the untouchables Red Bull and Mercedes of 2021 and ahead of his teammate. This year he began with more difficulties to adapt to the new F1-75, with which Leclerc ‘flew’. But little by little has been gaining confidence to star in stellar performances. He is fourth, 89 points behind Verstappen and 26 behind Leclerc, but he could be better positioned. Carlos has also suffered first-hand reliability failures, wall errors and incomprehensible stops.
In addition to the zeros in Australia, Italy and Baku, in Austria the engine blew when second position was tied. Carlos ended up engulfed in flames and condemned to go to the back of the grid at Paul Ricard for resorting to the fourth power unit. There, with nothing to lose, he made a fantastic teamwork to give Leclerc pole position and on Sunday he gave his team a spectacular race, climbing 14 positions to finish fifth, chosen ‘Rider of the day’.
???????? Good comeback. It was fun to gain positions in the race and I gave it my all on the track. Bad luck in the pits, but we fought for the podium. As always, we will review everything to try to improve. Go for Hungary.
????https://t.co/qUqRK8qkMf
–#CarlosSainz pic.twitter.com/WwVT7YHDGu
– Carlos Sainz (@Carlossainz55) July 24, 2022
A loot that knew little and that again had the ‘destabilizing’ factor of Ferrari. While Verstappen’s first stop was 2.4 seconds, Carlos’s, under the safety car, took 8.3. The confusion led him to skip the pit lane traffic light and he lost 5 seconds, which he did at his next stop…9.4! A pit stop that those from Maranello considered fundamental to prevent Sainz from running out of tires in the closing laps, just as he had overtaken Pérez in the fight for third place with the best of his 19 overtakes in France.
“I thought maybe it was better to take a chance, stay out and see what happens with the tyres, even if the medium was on the limit. I had just come up to 3rd and I thought if I made the tires last maybe I could have finished on the podium. But we will never know. It was a sensation, the team has a lot more data in the computer, they have a lot more numbers to review and if they made that decision, I am convinced that they did it with the best intentionsSainz analyzed, resigned and always prudent, despite the disgust.
Scare away the ‘ghosts’
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“I’m optimistic and I think we can fight for victory in Hungary”, says the man from Madrid now, who turns the page and wants to focus on the positive aspects. “I hope we can be at the same level we had in Austria and France. Doing it is already We know how complicated it is and you only have to look at the things that have happened in the last few races. You can be super competitive, but then everything has to fit”, he warns. “In each race I feel better in the car. We have all the ingredients to win, but now we need to put them all together. And hopefully we will celebrate a win on Sunday.”
The boss of Ferrari, Mattia Binottoclaims to have the recipe to scare away the ‘ghosts’ of the past: “Now we know how to turn the mistake into a lesson learned, more than blaming and finger pointing. It is about working as a team, each individual, understanding the common responsibility”. For now, the statistics contradict him.