Ferrari. The name says it all as one of the most popular car racing manufacturers in history. Pride and excellence go into making the race cars, both in formula 1 and now in the World Endurance Championship.
In the 1960’s, Ferrari dominated the 24 hours of Lemans, taking it on many occasions, until their streak was broken by Ford in 1966. Meanwhile, Ferrari was in contention for many F1 titles, but never seemed to take the magic victory until the late Niki Lauda and later, Jody Scheckter, started to win the respect of the F1 world.
Following this, Ferrari continued to make a name until 2007, when the prancing horse won another title with Kimi Raikkonen.
However, this was the last time that Ferrari took an F1 title, as Red Bull Racing, an independent team called Brawn, and of course, the change to the Mercedes label from there, resulting in Lewis Hamilton equaling Michael Schumacher’s seven grand prix wins. Incidentally, as you know, Schumacher drove for Ferrari. But since then, it has been a dry spell for the Italian team. This season, McLaren as well as the Mercedes team seem to be falling behind, and many of the Ferrari Tifosi are not expecting, but do not know what to expect.
No parties, no celebrations, nothing.
All this changed last weekend not at the recent grand prix in Spain for the F1 team, but the endurance squad at the renown 24 hours of Lemans race in France, where Ferrari took on the defending five-time champions from Toyota and beat them, only in their first season in the championship in years. This might have given Ferrari a huge lift in popularity, but it is the wrong Ferrari that is winning titles, and it begins to beg the question: If the endurance team has success in its first season back, why is it taking so long for the F1 team to win a championship??The endurance team for one, has a different chassis, and this is understandable because of the nature of the rules, which are different for both kinds of racing. The endurance team had a choice of three different composites, and of course, them being Italian, they chose Dallara, which also has relations with the American Haas F1 team.
The other reason must be that when some employees from the formula 1 team were laid off, they had a few choices: do they just leave? Or even try another part of Ferrari that was opening. Like Haas? Who now have an office in Maranello for their F1 team. Or how about the endurance team? This is probably where some of the talent that was on the F1 team ended up going, and it brought great success for the project in their first year back since 1971. Stripping the employees away might have been the problem that losing so much talent might have given the F1 team little to work with, and this suffered in the F1 program itself, where it is now.
We can also mention the terrible strategies that the team has given to both Carlos Sainz and especially, Charles Leclerc, who thanks to the team’s decisions during races, have not finished well. This could be in addition, the design of the car, or anything that can come across the critics of the sport, and with such names as Luca Montemozolo, Stefano Dominicali, Jean Todt and most recently, Mattia Binotto, all departing, it hard to say that even Frenchman Frederic Vasseur can do any more then what is already being accomplished. Binotto should be mentioned that he took a team from sixth place in the constructor’s championship in 2020 to a winning team that faded to fast afterwards.
Ferrari can only recover if the team hires some experts to improve the program. Maybe some of the endurance group can give the F1 team some advice on how to do something right.
It might not be a bad idea, and if it succeeds, then the fans there will know what to expect.
By Mark Gero
