It was another humbling weekend for Ferrari at the Belgian GP in the last race-day as the Scuderia ranked 13th and 14th at Spa-Francorchamps. It has been a series of unfortunate results for Ferrari, who is at a shocking 5th on the constructor’s standing, throughout the season. At the Belgian GP however, the historic team were stripped to their bare bones and it was shameful, and at times pathetic to watch them perform the way they did.
What happened to Ferrari at the Belgian GP?
Last weekend, Ferrari was awful in the practice sessions itself. Charles Leclerc admitted Ferrari’s woeful Friday practice pace was worse than expected, the talented racer being the best-placed driver in a red car down in 15th, 1.696s off the pace. This was particularly sad, because they were the only team to have car slower than any other team from the last year.
So, Ferrari added more down force to the car in a bid to solve the problem. That did not help their cause at all, and they seemed like they could lose both their cars in qualifying itself. However, they somehow pulled through, albeit Vettel and Leclerc both banging wheels at one point during the race on Sunday. Speaking to Sky F1 after the race, Vettel said,” Hopefully the problems are Spa-specific. There are a lot of lessons from this weekend and we have two important races coming we need to focus on. The package is what it is. We need to stay optimistic and see the good things, even if there are not many.”
Will Ferrari be able to sort their problems out?
As thing stand, it seems very unlikely. The next 2 races are in Italy, Ferrari’s home country, in Monza and then Mugello, and it could not have come at a worst time. Their lack of straight-line speed is a problem that neither the racers not their engineering team has been able to solve.
Elaborating on this, former Renault Team Principal Flavio Briatore said,” There are people who always follow the difficult path – the most complicated road. And at the moment that is Ferrari. Ferrari has an important business and spectacular name – any driver would want to drive for them for two or three years.
But then you look at the track and they have had problems for years. They’ve had great drivers and not won anything and there must be a reason. The reason, in this case, is that Ferrari does not have clear leadership.”
And he is probably right. There is a damning lack of vision and clarity at Ferrari at the moment which keeps hurting their chances, and it is unlikely to change any time soon.
