2023 Scuderia Ferrari F1 Team

[KimiRai]

As a driver I would react leaving Ferrari asap.

It's not that easy. A driver before did exactly what you suggest, Alonso, when Ferrari built one of the worst balanced cars they've ever had with the F14T (even the name being similar to "FIAT" seems like a joke).

Look what happened to him. He thought Ferrari was bad but he was for an even worse surprise with McHonda. So where would you want Charles to go?

In my opinion, Alonso made an error, misjudging McLaren new Power Unit supplier.

Honda already had a one-year delay in the new hybrid engines, so critical for every other team (except Mercedes).
He had to imagine that success might have been unlikely.

Error or not it goes to show that Charles could make the same choice after a bad car and end up in a worse place than Ferrari. At the moment what seats are open from top teams? None at Mercedes and Red Bull as well (replacing Perez you'd be up against Max in his own team). From decent teams? Aston the same and McLaren too. I don't think he can go anywhere for now.

[Sevach]

[Sevach]

As a driver I would react leaving Ferrari asap.

It's not that easy. A driver before did exactly what you suggest, Alonso, when Ferrari built one of the worst balanced cars they've ever had with the F14T (even the name being similar to "FIAT" seems like a joke).

Look what happened to him. He thought Ferrari was bad but he was for an even worse surprise with McHonda. So where would you want Charles to go?

In my opinion, Alonso made an error, misjudging McLaren new Power Unit supplier.

Honda already had a one-year delay in the new hybrid engines, so critical for every other team (except Mercedes).
He had to imagine that success might have been unlikely.

At the time, Honda having free reign entering one year later was seem as a great opportunity, could design their engine already knowing some characteristics of the Mercedes... while others were restricted by a token system.

That turned out to be a huuuuuge dud, but it was the bet Ron Dennis and Alonso took.

[gordonthegun]

It's not that easy. A driver before did exactly what you suggest, Alonso, when Ferrari built one of the worst balanced cars they've ever had with the F14T (even the name being similar to "FIAT" seems like a joke).

Look what happened to him. He thought Ferrari was bad but he was for an even worse surprise with McHonda. So where would you want Charles to go?

In my opinion, Alonso made an error, misjudging McLaren new Power Unit supplier.

Honda already had a one-year delay in the new hybrid engines, so critical for every other team (except Mercedes).
He had to imagine that success might have been unlikely.

Error or not it goes to show that Charles could make the same choice after a bad car and end up in a worse place than Ferrari. At the moment what seats are open from top teams? None at Mercedes and Red Bull as well (replacing Perez you'd be up against Max in his own team). From decent teams? Aston the same and McLaren too. I don't think he can go anywhere for now.

I can agree with you.
My first reply was meant to be an ironic one not needing too much analysis.

[gordonthegun]

When your name is "Ferrari" if you haven't won for 16 years it is clear that the problem comes from the management who don't want to put in place the conditions to be successful.

It is crazy when you think about it. First, under di Montezemolo and Domenicalli, you have a fairly decent team in terms of on-track operations, but the technical team is hindered by the lack of proper simulation tools (a left-over of Schumi-era where there was unlimited testing, so who needs simulation tools).

Then, under Marchionne and Arrivabene, technical team gradually gets better, but the PU is still slightly lacking and strategy dept. starts making slip-ups.

Then, we have Elkann and Binotto, where Binotto is very slowly building things up with mostly the same team but still they fail spectacularly - and especially with SF-23.

I remember Andi saying (and wasn't the first time I heard that) di Montezemolo was back to his old self as soon as Brawn left Ferrari, taking charge and overturning car-related decisions engineers already made. Then, Marchionne allegedly decided to Italianise the team even further, which wasn't too bad overall but you still miss a chance to take some outsiders and learn what other teams are doing first-hand.

So far, Vasseur is not making any of the mistakes of recent predecessors. But still remains to be seen. From the technical side, there are 2 major issues that the 2024 car must not suffer from:
- poor tyre management when the conditions are not ideal
- poor aerodynamic stability when the setup is not ideal (insufficient front wing downforce is a huge part of this)

If either of these 2 issues is still present in 2024, then we know the technical department is still lacking quite a lot compared to (at least) RB unfortunately.

Good analysis that doesn't completely contradict my statement.

I just add that Vasseur is a subordinate of Elkann and Vigna, so whether this management will actually and fully support him remains to be seen... and we will see soon.

[organic]

https://twitter.com/ScuderiaFerrari/sta ... 40366?s=20

Perfect

[AR3-GP]

It is on the team to be ready even if the driver doesn't call to pit... Ferrari should have been ready for one of their drivers to want inters given we knew this shower was happening for a long time prior to its arrival.. didn't come out of nowhere.

Leclerc made the right call, unlike many other drivers so credit for that despite not a great Sunday overall

Aren't there rules saying the team isn't allowed in the pitlane unless they intend to stop? Otherwise, every team would have simply stood in the pitlane from lap 1 to lap 5.

[Vanja #66]

Good analysis that doesn't completely contradict my statement.

I just add that Vasseur is a subordinate of Elkann and Vigna, so whether this management will actually and fully support him remains to be seen... and we will see soon.

It was not my intent to contradict what you said, rather to back it up with some context and obvious lack of excelency in all dept's at the same time at Ferrari, since 2006. Unfortunately, management often does not see what it does not want to see...

In all honesty, those two are so far behaving better than I expected. Hopefully I didn't jinx it just now...

[codetower]

It is on the team to be ready even if the driver doesn't call to pit... Ferrari should have been ready for one of their drivers to want inters given we knew this shower was happening for a long time prior to its arrival.. didn't come out of nowhere.

Leclerc made the right call, unlike many other drivers so credit for that despite not a great Sunday overall

The car is in complete disarray. The team is in disarray. Like organic, I am baffled how with rain falling during the formation lap, and more rain on the radar, the pit wall isn't at least preparing to bring a car in. Restart and a full lap and they are all still sitting around.

I've looked back some onboards yesterday from Leclerc (and others) and can't help but think that Leclerc is at least part of the problem. He is massively talented but can't maximise, kind of a all or nothing driver at this moment. At the same time it seems to me that he's really trying to over perform. Example is the first pit stop where he called boxing on pit entrance; hence his team wasn't ready for it as he made the call way too late. Perez for example already made the call to box in turn 13.

In my opinion the bottom line is that Leclerc while having loads of talent seems like being too young or inexperienced to build a team around. He doesn't have the experience to take with him from other teams to help SF nor does SF have the ability to hire experience from other top teams to help them forward. To say it's only the car: I think Sainz showed (and shows week in week out) that the car may not be a championship contender but in the mix to be either 2nd or 3rd in the constructor championship, it's just Leclerc who keeps throwing away money and points

It has nothing to do with experience. Some drivers are more aggressive than others. Some aren't driving around just playing it "safe". The ones who are are not going to get on the podium, and definitely not going to win any races without an immense amount of luck. I absolutely prefer Leclerc's driving style to others on the track. I don't know any other Ferrari fans who think otherwise. If not then just let Charles go and bring in another safe driver to run alongside of Sainz. We wont have any "costly" accidents or mistakes, but we also wont score higher than 5th in any race. I prefer the moments of excitement.

The fact is that the car is not a very difficult car to drive. It's easy to say a driver is making mistakes or comes across as inexperienced, or sloppy when you compare with drivers in other cars. But the RB is very stable. The Aston is stable. The Mercedes is stable (slow... but stable). You can't compare.

[gordonthegun]

Good analysis that doesn't completely contradict my statement.

I just add that Vasseur is a subordinate of Elkann and Vigna, so whether this management will actually and fully support him remains to be seen... and we will see soon.

It was not my intent to contradict what you said, rather to back it up with some context and obvious lack of excelency in all dept's at the same time at Ferrari, since 2006. Unfortunately, management often does not see what it does not want to see...

In all honesty, those two are so far behaving better than I expected. Hopefully I didn't jinx it just now...

Yes, right, you didn't want to contradict me, I just misread your first sentence. It's your profile picture fault

[chrisc90]

Maybe they should do a swap with Merc. Lec and Hamilton. Lewis always speaks of which direction the team should go and how best to develop the car.

Which begs me to ask.....is Carlos and Charles giving good feedback on the car and the development path it needs to take?

[Xyz22]

Maybe they should do a swap with Merc. Lec and Hamilton. Lewis always speaks of which direction the team should go and how best to develop the car.

Which begs me to ask.....is Carlos and Charles giving good feedback on the car and the development path it needs to take?

So Vettel Alonso and Kimi were also bad at giving feedback i suppose ?

[chrisc90]

Maybe they should do a swap with Merc. Lec and Hamilton. Lewis always speaks of which direction the team should go and how best to develop the car.

Which begs me to ask.....is Carlos and Charles giving good feedback on the car and the development path it needs to take?

So Vettel Alonso and Kimi were also bad at giving feedback i suppose ?

Not meaning to highlight the fact of the current drivers and their feedback. It was merely a suggestion/point of discussion.

[organic]

In terms of development and the role of Ferrari drivers.. I believe the main issue is that Leclerc and Carlos do not have similar preferences in terms of what they want the car to do. It is no surprise. Leclerc wants the pointy car while Carlos does not

So the feedback is not going to be the same from both sides of the garage. RB have the same problem with max and Perez, but at Ferrari they try to value their drivers equally at this point in time so if they end up with a Leclerc that only works for Leclerc, sainz will call foul

Of course you can try to tread that fine line where the car is neutral and can go one direction or the other and move many things around on the setup.. but that requires a fine control over the dynamics of the vehicle and understanding of things like the tyres which Ferrari has already demonstrated a lack of over the past couple of years.. it makes it difficult to believe that they will be able to hit a specific target in terms of balance for next year's car but I'm open to being surprised

Additionally, there was a worrying trend last year that whenever the car was slower, the happier Carlos was with the car. So the productivity of his feedback concerns me

[chrisc90]

I wonder how much comes down to drivers adapting to the change. I know Max said that he had to change his driving style quite a lot given this era of regulations.