Ferrari are set for another year of Formula One failure, their high hopes as one of the favourites coming into the season now lie in ruins. The Scuderia broke the bank to bring seven times champion Lewis Hamilton to the team, but their failure to deliver a car even capable of winning one race by round ten has become a national embarrassment in Italy, with a number of media outlets calling for heads to roll in Maranello.
Unlike his predecessor, the team principal Fred Vasseur has no engineering background but was recruited to replace Mattia Binotto for has man management skills. Such was the low ebb in morale at the iconic red team after years of failure, the ex-Sauber boss was brought in to calm troubled waters by cutting the inherent blame game within the racing organisation.
Following the spectacular success of the Brawn, Todt, Schumacher era where the team dominated F1 for seven years winning six constructor titles and five for Michael Schumacher, there was a top down focus set by then president Luca de Montezemolo to replace the English, French and German influences to make Ferrari ‘more Italian’.
Ferrari: An Italian obsession
Todt’s replacement as team principal, Stefano Domenicali had some moderate success in charge of the Scuderia. Having recruited Kimi Raikkonen to replace Schumacher, the Finn slipped past the warring McLaren pair of Hamilton and Alonso to claim the drivers title in 2007 by a single point.
With Hamilton claiming his maiden world championship the following season, it was Ferrari with the more consistent driver lineup who took the constructor’s title by what under the current scoring system was a comfortable margin. Of course Ferrari still retained at the time many of the engineers recruited by Brawn and Todt and the systems were in place to deliver continuity from the Schumacher era.
Yet as time went on, the team focused on recruiting Italian ‘only’ personnel and with Domenicali calling it a day a string of team principals were recruited, all with Italian heritage, but none were able to bring success to the iconic F1 racing marque. Such is the national pride invested in F1, a number of media outlets have been hailing eighteen year old Mercedes’ rookie driver, Kimi Antonelli, the ”saviour” of Italian racing pride.
This kind of sentiment expresses the national obsession Italians have with Formula One and their desperation to win either of the championships on offer, given their barren run off failure now extends to a record breaking seventeen seasons.
Vasseur blames media for team’s failure
The fallout from Mattia Binotto’s disastrous reign as team boss forced the hand of the Ferrari group senior executives to once again turn to a Frenchman (like Todt), to fix the broken culture within the team. Fred Vasseur is no engineer but experienced success as owner and team boss of junior racing team ART which launched the careers of Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.
Yet now three year’s into the job Vasseur is looking frazzled and his extraordinary rant at the Italian media at the recent Canadian Grand Prix was surprising to say the least. He accused them of bringing about the current state of affairs within the team by their constant public criticism of Ferrari’s lack of success, something which in the cold light of day is clearly a ridiculous suggestion.
“If it’s their target to put the team in this situation, they reach their goal. But I think it’s really… It’s not like this that we will be able to win a championship. And at least not with this kind of journalist around us,” said Vasseur in the team principal’s press conference in Montreal.
Ferrari’s season is falling apart with just three Grand Prix podiums for Charle Leclerc. At the same point last season, after ten rounds, the Scuderia had claimed two Grand Prix victories and seven other podiums to boot. Whilst Vasseur may have returned the feel good factor to some of the team’s personnel and the ‘head down – keep quiet’ silo mentality from Binotto’s reign has been somewhat banished, the road ahead to glory seems long.
Bizarre decision to build whole new car
Vasseur announced last December that Ferrari would build an entirely new car for 2025, despite it being the last year of the current F1 car design regulations. Given the SF-24 was the quickest car over the six final races of 2024, outscoring McLaren by some 61 points, this writer penned at the tine this was a “bizarre” decision.
The other top contenders chose to evolve their 2024 F1 challengers, with McLaren so far looking to have delivered the best. It has been argued by certain fans of the Scuderia that this season has been all about trying new concepts which may be incorporated into the massively different cars coming in 2026. The switch in front suspension configuration from ‘push rod’ to ‘pull rod’ is proposed as an example.
Whilst the difference between the two suspension philosophies is complex, its suffice to say Ferrari’s intention in making such a monumental design shift was to improve the car in higher speed corners where they were lacking with the SF-24. Yet the benefits from this change do not appear to have come.
Ferrari are only in the hunt for second place in the constructors’ championship this season because they have the best balanced pair of drivers when compared to their rivals. Mercedes have an 18 year old rookie finding his way and Red Bull yet again are suffering from the curse of the second seat to Verstappen. If not for this, Ferrari would be out of the top three and by some margin.
Vasseur says no more big upgrades this year
In year’s when F1 is not making car design regulations for the following season, Ferrari would be throwing the kitchen sink at improving the SF-24, but hopes of this for its drivers appear to be now dashed. “We will have an upgrade soon, before the UK and perhaps another one a bit later,” Vasseur told assembled media I Canada. ”But honestly, it is much more about the execution and what you are getting from the car than the potential of the car itself.
“We are at the end of these regulations, and we know that if we are bringing something, we are speaking about hundredths [of a second] and not tenths. If you don’t have a good set-up on the car, you can lose tenths and a couple of times in the past, we were not the only ones who, when we brought upgrades, needed one or two races to adapt the car to the new parts.”
With less than half of the season complete, this philosophy appears again bizarre, given the huge roll of the dice Vasseur took in allowing his engineers to build a challenger for this year which was “99% brand new.” Did they ace the design and so now are merely tinkering around the edges? Clearly not, in fact this year’s car has been slower in qualifying on more than one occasion than the 2024 car at the same circuit.
Whether Vasseur survives the current media onslaught he is enduring is dubious. Given the history of Ferrari and their chop and change approach to leadership, it seems unlikely as their desperation to end nigh on two decades of failure is heading in the wrong direction.
FIA stewards bend the rules in Canada
The Canadian Grand Prix was a highly anticipated event following the on track antics which had taken place the race before in Barcelona. The feud between George Russell and Max Verstappen had been re-ignited at the Spanish Grand Prix when the Mercedes driver forced Verstappen off the track at turn one.
Ironically Russell attempted a move for which Verstappen has been much criticised – the classic dive bomb down the inside – to claim the apex of the corner. Yet the British driver miscalculated his braking, lost control the car momentarily and hit Verstappen – who was forced to take to the escape route and rejoined ahead his rival on track.
Red Bull decided given the tightness of the field following a safety car restart meant should the stewards make another of their erratic decisions and penalise Max, it would be prudent to tell their driver to relinquish the place to Russell and mitigate a decision that Verstappen had left the track and gained an advantage…. READ MORE
With over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 as an insider journalist, I have built trusted connections across the paddock, from race engineers and mechanics to senior team figures. At The Judge 13, I and a handful of trusted colleagues share exclusive Formula 1 news, expert analysis and behind-the-scenes stories you will not find in mainstream motorsport media.
