The Prancing Horse rides again . . . at last
After years in the doldrums, Ferrari is finally in pole position for a title bid, writes Rebecca Clancy.
IN recent years the Prancing Horse hasn’t quite had the spring in its step that the team’s supporters, the ‘tifosi’, would have liked, but after two successful pre-season tests it may be that Ferrari will be in contention this season.
That was the topic of conversation up and down the paddock, both at the first test in Barcelona and the second test last week in Bahrain.
For a sport obsessed with spending multi-millions to make a car go a 10th of a second faster, it’s difficult to ignore completely the timesheets from the first test – but that is almost certainly what is required with the teams still getting to know their new cars.
Charles Leclerc was fourthquickest for Ferrari but the metric that really matters is the lap count, and Ferrari was the only team to top 400 laps over the course of those three days in Barcelona, with 439, some 46 more than Mercedes, which clocked the second-highest mileage.
The number was slightly lower in Bahrain, with Mercedes completing the most laps with 385, but Ferrari was still impressively consistent with 349.
What that shows is that Ferrari did not struggle with reliability, and regularly topped the timesheets in Bahrain, where the clock was more closely watched as the teams ran their qualifying simulation laps at roughly the same time of the day that qualifying will take place today at the season-opening grand prix, also in Bahrain.
There is now a real belief that Ferrari could be in a position to break the dominance of Red Bull and Mercedes.
Lewis Hamilton raised concerns on the final day of testing in Bahrain when he said he did not expect Mercedes to be fighting for wins at the start of the season. Rather, the seven-times world champion said, it would be Ferrari challenging Red Bull in the early races.
Ferrari has moved to play down any suggestion of success this year, with Mattia Binotto, the team principal, insisting it is an outsider.
‘‘I think it has been six positive days,’’ he said. ‘‘But in terms of performance it’s very difficult to judge. I still believe that both Red Bull and Mercedes are the main [favourites].
‘‘They are the ones that won last year, both world champions, drivers or constructors. They have proved to be very strong teams in the past and had a second of advantage at the end of last year.
‘‘As Ferrari, we should try to be at least outsiders, try to be as close as we can. Certainly I hope that it will be very close at the end of the year.’’
Towards the end of last year, Christian Horner, the Red Bull team principal, half-joked that he thought Ferrari would win the championship this year as his team had been locked in such a fierce battle with Mercedes that its attention had been diverted away from working on this season’s car and taking full advantage of the considerable change in regulations.
Horner had a point. While Red Bull and Mercedes locked horns during 2021, Ferrari was able to turn its attention fairly early to the 2022 car, giving it something of an edge. Ferrari has, arguably, the most exciting driver line-up in the paddock. Leclerc is the talented youngster on who it has pinned hopes to win its first title since 2008, when it won the
constructors’ championship, a year after Kimi Raikkonen had claimed its last drivers’ crown. The 24-year-old Leclerc has a $NZ18 million-a-year deal to remain with the team through to the end of 2024, but it is understood that he is in talks to extend that to 2026.
Carlos Sainz joined the team last year and few would have expected him to beat Leclerc, but that is what he did, finishing fifth in the championship, two places ahead his team-mate, which helped Ferrari to claim third spot in the constructors’ championship.
Ferrari has been impressed with the 27-year-old Spaniard, who moved near to Maranello in Italy so he could be in the team’s factory as much as possible. The team is expected to offer him a new deal, with his present one expiring at the end of this year.
Both drivers have made it clear that their priority is to work for the team, not themselves, and return the Scuderia to the top. It would be easy to dismiss that as just the usual PR, but one of Binotto’s main points in meetings is that no-one is bigger than the team.
Ferrari had strong pre-season tests in 2017 and 2018, when it was fighting for the championship before imploding. Mercedes went on to win both titles with races to spare.
No-one would want to see a repeat of that and F1 is better if Ferrari is back at the front and challenging. We don’t have long to wait to find out just how good the horse is running.
‘‘As Ferrari, we should try to be at least outsiders, try to be as close as we can. Certainly I hope that it will be very close at the end of the year.’’
Mattia Binotto Ferrari team principal