[ 2020 ] Scuderia Ferrari - Ferrari

[Nathanael F1]

From today's race you can tell Leclerc is also getting quite frustrated by the way the team operates.

[ENGINE TUNER]

This team is lacking everywhere. Did anybody ever heard race engineer said "We are still on plan A." They are always considering plan C. How can they be so wrong all the time they are always converting to different plans. Today they didn't know what to say to driver, which plan is going to be executed.

Safety cars change plans, it's very simple actually.

[ENGINE TUNER]

So 7 races in, the team is worse off than the at the beginning. Yes, this is a covid year, but with the amt. of cash Big Red spends on engineers, the Team should be able to progress somewhat. What we do know is that both cars were beaten on pace by a customer team. Aside from a lad whose dad bought him into a car that used to be 4-seconds off the pace, the only cars we finished ahead of were Ferrari milled.

In the game of politics, a 25-year veteran and valued engineer gave an ultimatum that he would not work in the same factory as Arri...Arri gets canned. Results have plummeted since. Aside from dog cars, today I also witnessed a bush league pit stop, a strange mechanical failure (requiring another lengthy stop), and vague strategy instructions to both drivers. Is "shambles" to strong a term for a team with this many resources? Thus, on the surface, Ferrari's Brass voted to keep the wrong guy.

Aside from Bino, does anyone know if other Ferrari career types threatened to leave if Arri stayed?

If you ain't first you are last. So what if Ferrari are 2nd or 7th? It doesn't matter, either you are a winner(which Ferrari never had a chance of this season) or you are a loser. Ferrari has enough money that the wcc standing is inconsequential to them, anything other than winning is a failure.

The lower Ferrari finish this year and next, the more resources they are allowed to put towards the 2022 season(cfd terraflops and wind tunnel time), which happens to be their biggest opportunity to get back to winning races and championships for the next decade or so.

Sacrificing points this season could be worth championships for the next several years. Even while cheating the fuel regs last year Ferrari still could not win the championship, there was no chance after they were found out, better to focus on 2022.

Shortsightedness got them in this position, only the long view(and lots of money and talent) will get them out.

[dtro]

So 7 races in, the team is worse off than the at the beginning. Yes, this is a covid year, but with the amt. of cash Big Red spends on engineers, the Team should be able to progress somewhat. What we do know is that both cars were beaten on pace by a customer team. Aside from a lad whose dad bought him into a car that used to be 4-seconds off the pace, the only cars we finished ahead of were Ferrari milled.

In the game of politics, a 25-year veteran and valued engineer gave an ultimatum that he would not work in the same factory as Arri...Arri gets canned. Results have plummeted since. Aside from dog cars, today I also witnessed a bush league pit stop, a strange mechanical failure (requiring another lengthy stop), and vague strategy instructions to both drivers. Is "shambles" to strong a term for a team with this many resources? Thus, on the surface, Ferrari's Brass voted to keep the wrong guy.

Aside from Bino, does anyone know if other Ferrari career types threatened to leave if Arri stayed?

The question is how shambles isn't a strong enough word at this point. Binotto was asked if he'd have a Mercedes beater this year and he responded that they'd have a beater in Austria. This was before Covid. Hell the car was designed before Covid. In the U.S. a beater is slang for a dogsh-t car.

Though Arrivabene is missed the rot was in Ferrari started before this year.

While McLaren/Renault rises, Ferrari falls along with it's engine customers. The engine is a whoopie cushion.

[JordanMugen]

What specifically about the SF1000 targets it to the high and medium downforce levels tracks. I actually agree that the evidence points to your claim being true, I'm just trying to understand why.

They put more downforce on it! It's not a low drag car anymore.

Ferrari should certainly improve their race operations and strategy, that should be easy to improve and should be fixed by the next race!

[JordanMugen]

The question is how shambles isn't a strong enough word at this point. Binotto was asked if he'd have a Mercedes beater this year and he responded that they'd have a beater in Austria.

How do you expect to have a winning car with 50 less hp than the opposition? Ferrari must work within the constraints of what's possible, there was not enough time to design 2020 power unit to comply with FIA directives (a power unit that cannot be upgraded due to 2020 regulations), so the engineers will be able to recover as much power as possible on the 2021 power unit.

[selvam_e2002]

Let see if they can recover 2021 which I doubt. It is very difficult in F1. You have to improve your PU and engine throughout the season. They are behind 3 years development.

And they already know that they cannot use last year power unit as two sensor coming on the way. They aware of it.

I would say, it is 100% on Binotto he should concentrated on engine and PU for development not using short cut.

[Ringleheim]

Let see if they can recover 2021 which I doubt. It is very difficult in F1. You have to improve your PU and engine throughout the season. They are behind 3 years development.

And they already know that they cannot use last year power unit as two sensor coming on the way. They aware of it.

I would say, it is 100% on Binotto he should concentrated on engine and PU for development not using short cut.

The funny thing (or is it sad?) is that Binotto came from the engine department!

I honestly do not want to see "improvements" for next year. 2021 is meaningless. They must not only get the new reg 2022 car correct, it must be outstanding in every way.

If the new reg car is another dog or even OK but .5 seconds behind Mercedes, it will stay there for a period of years. Ferrari's pace of development is not going to be faster than Mercedes.

If I have to watch Mercedes and Hamilton keep winning, I'm going to be sick.

[grubschumi13]

I think Ferrari lost direction, they try and switch across too many concepts and end up master of none of the concepts they try.

From 2017 they had a very good foundation with the SF70, instead of building on that technical platform, each year after they changed the entire philosophy of the car, instead of trying to master one. In 2018 they managed to reduce drag but but did not stray away too much from the fundamental concept of the car. I do think it was too much drag they reduced and ended up with a looser rear which their 1st driver didn't like and made him spin on occasions.

Mercedes since 2014 produced essentially the same car W05, W06, W07 just learning to Master and fine tune the underlying concept. Same for the W08, 09,10 and 11 all look similar, naturally as they master the concept the changes in the car can be seen as more obvious the wider each car comparison is made e.g. comparing W08 to W11. Same with Redbull they stick to their concepts but Mercedes had such a head start since 2014 plus Redbull don't manufacture the engines so there is an element outside of their full control

They have designed the car with high down force they should dig in and master the high down force concept instead of trying to scratching the surface of other concepts. The biggest mistake Ferrari made was in the 2019 car, it won 3 races yes but was so far off the W10 becuase they changed philosophy entirely and had to learn from scratch only to suddenly in 2020 change philosophy completely to a high down force concept.

Not sure how under Binotto they will compete again because he changes his mind at the turn of a hat. This can be evidenced from 2019 he said:

1. Vettel will have priority, by Singapore he is having to explain himself to Leclerc.
2. In Russia trying to switch positions when they had a 1-2 and Vettel had the pace in the race, non of the drivers were in the title fight.
3. Procrastinated so long in races like China to issue the instruction to get Leclerc to let Vettel pass it was still only a few weeks after he said Vettel will have priority.
4. Said the Philosophy of the 2020 car will be high down force, before the first race in Austria, "we are changing the philosophy"
5. Said Vettel was their first choice for the Ferrari seat, months later we don't want him.

It is no doubt his prerogative to make the team decisions but he should have conviction and and learn the path he has chosen.

Chances are in 2022 there could be some knowledge from the existing cars that can be transferred to the next car but they will no so little of so much.

[dtro]

The question is how shambles isn't a strong enough word at this point. Binotto was asked if he'd have a Mercedes beater this year and he responded that they'd have a beater in Austria.

How do you expect to have a winning car with 50 less hp than the opposition? Ferrari must work within the constraints of what's possible, there was not enough time to design 2020 power unit to comply with FIA directives (a power unit that cannot be upgraded due to 2020 regulations), so the engineers will be able to recover as much power as possible on the 2021 power unit.

Except Ferrari has 50hp less because they'd been developing their engine outside the scope of the regs for a number of years. If an athlete had been using steroids for years, then was discovered to be using steroids, then had a terrible year because performance enhancing drugs were banned/ruled illegal nobody would be up in arms asking "how do you expect them to win." People would say "ah, that athlete is now average (in Ferrari's case below average) given the absence of performance enhancing drugs."

It seems pretty obvious to outsiders that Ferrari was not running parallel development such that if one of their development paths failed (or was ruled illegal) they could recover.

If Ferrari can recover anything in 2021 I'll be mightily impressed. My understanding, which may be wrong, of 2021 is that we'll have the 2020 cars running with what- one token for engine development? They better hope they hit the nail on the head otherwise they'll have a couple pissed off drivers being paid way too much to drive a lawn mower around the track.

Is anyone actually defending Ferrari at this point?

[LM10]

The question is how shambles isn't a strong enough word at this point. Binotto was asked if he'd have a Mercedes beater this year and he responded that they'd have a beater in Austria.

How do you expect to have a winning car with 50 less hp than the opposition? Ferrari must work within the constraints of what's possible, there was not enough time to design 2020 power unit to comply with FIA directives (a power unit that cannot be upgraded due to 2020 regulations), so the engineers will be able to recover as much power as possible on the 2021 power unit.

Except Ferrari has 50hp less because they'd been developing their engine outside the scope of the regs for a number of years. If an athlete had been using steroids for years, then was discovered to be using steroids, then had a terrible year because performance enhancing drugs were banned/ruled illegal nobody would be up in arms asking "how do you expect them to win." People would say "ah, that athlete is now average (in Ferrari's case below average) given the absence of performance enhancing drugs."

It seems pretty obvious to outsiders that Ferrari was not running parallel development such that if one of their development paths failed (or was ruled illegal) they could recover.

If Ferrari can recover anything in 2021 I'll be mightily impressed. My understanding, which may be wrong, of 2021 is that we'll have the 2020 cars running with what- one token for engine development? They better hope they hit the nail on the head otherwise they'll have a couple pissed off drivers being paid way too much to drive a lawn mower around the track.

Is anyone actually defending Ferrari at this point?

There won’t be a token system for PU development. Besides bringing a completely new PU to the start of 2021, the teams will be allowed to upgrade the PU twice (not so sure about that, but I think twice is correct) throughout the season.

[ENGINE TUNER]

What specifically about the SF1000 targets it to the high and medium downforce levels tracks. I actually agree that the evidence points to your claim being true, I'm just trying to understand why.

They put more downforce on it! It's not a low drag car anymore.

Ferrari should certainly improve their race operations and strategy, that should be easy to improve and should be fixed by the next race!

Nonsense, merc and rbr keep putting more downforce on their cars every year, every development, every race, but they stay at the front regardless if it's a high, medium or low downforce track. Something about the Ferrari car is giving it much higher drag at the higher speed ranges(250kph and up) compared to its rivals. Could be that front nose section.

[dtro]

How do you expect to have a winning car with 50 less hp than the opposition? Ferrari must work within the constraints of what's possible, there was not enough time to design 2020 power unit to comply with FIA directives (a power unit that cannot be upgraded due to 2020 regulations), so the engineers will be able to recover as much power as possible on the 2021 power unit.

Except Ferrari has 50hp less because they'd been developing their engine outside the scope of the regs for a number of years. If an athlete had been using steroids for years, then was discovered to be using steroids, then had a terrible year because performance enhancing drugs were banned/ruled illegal nobody would be up in arms asking "how do you expect them to win." People would say "ah, that athlete is now average (in Ferrari's case below average) given the absence of performance enhancing drugs."

It seems pretty obvious to outsiders that Ferrari was not running parallel development such that if one of their development paths failed (or was ruled illegal) they could recover.

If Ferrari can recover anything in 2021 I'll be mightily impressed. My understanding, which may be wrong, of 2021 is that we'll have the 2020 cars running with what- one token for engine development? They better hope they hit the nail on the head otherwise they'll have a couple pissed off drivers being paid way too much to drive a lawn mower around the track.

Is anyone actually defending Ferrari at this point?

There won’t be a token system for PU development. Besides bringing a completely new PU to the start of 2021, the teams will be allowed to upgrade the PU twice (not so sure about that, but I think twice is correct) throughout the season.

Interesting, thank you for clarifying. Maybe a better engine will drag some results out of this chassis.

[Manoah2u]

I don’t really see how Binotto can stay if it carries on like this. They are going backwards under him with bad decisions being compounded by more bad decisions. The whole team seems toxic and directionless, and that comes from the top.

Clearly Binotto is going to be replaced. Monza is going to be devastating, and Ferrari's son wont take it lightly. Generally, Ferrari doing bad at Monza is worst case scenario. Piero will demand change. Ferrari will rapidly invest for the 2021 season instead on focusing on the 2022 season, which would be wiser, but they can't 'accept' a bad image for a single season which keeps the same problem going on and on. They apparantly 'tricked' their way out of the 2019 'slum' by doing a illegal trick and got away with it for a while. Clearly a panic move attempt.

This however is an important feat to concider. It's without any doubt that Ferrari's mid 2019 jump was delibarate cheating. They took it and boasted with it, and somehow it seems, like they actually just decided to stay with it instead of use the time as of mid 2019 to really improve and develop. Which surprises me, as it seems to show the incompetence and total disconnection from reality going on at Ferrari. This does include the totally insane move from Ferrari to ditch Vettel and stay with (according to Ferrari history) 'Rookie' LeClerc, and signing Sainz.

Ferrari needs total restructuring. TOTAL.
They don't even have the 'power' they used to have within F1 anymore. Yeah, the deal with the FIA shows they're still up to tricks, but I personally believe the fact we've actually heared from it that it shows Ferrari's current 'weakness' : out, about, in the open, fragile, and vulnerable, when interestingly, Mercedes seems to have 'taken' more or less Ferrari's mantle and grown in 'total power'.

Ferrari needs completely new management. Whether we like it or not.

[C Plinius Secundus]

I've heard some very interesting statements from Mattia Binotto, where he says the team "is in a storm", but "not in crisis"... I'm kind of puzzled by this, if he says this just in order to address the journalists, for many italians and tifosi (me included), it's a bad joke, almost infuriating (the italian press is asking for some heads to roll), but if he really believes it, it's actually worse. Is he disconnected from reality? Binotto is an excellent engineer, but as I said previously, the team principal position is not suited for him. Sad.