IT is incredible to think that Ferrari are heading into this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza in an even worse position than they were 12 months ago.In December they replaced long-serving employee Mattia Binotto as team principal with Fred Vasseur.
Ferrari have made some laughable mistakes during the Formula One seasonCredit: Rex
But it is clear that any hopes of the Frenchman bringing an immediate upturn in results have been firmly extinguished.
In fact, it is difficult to see what improvements – if any at all – have been made since Vasseur was installed as the boss of F1’s most famous team.
Reliability is still a problem. Aerodynamically the car is unpredictable. Operationally, the mistakes are laughable and consequently the team’s drivers are shot of confidence.
Put simply, Ferrari have been made to look so embarrassingly off the pace by Red Bull Racing, they could be mistaken for amateurs.
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Look at the numbers. They are currently 339 points behind Red Bull in the championship and find themselves in fourth place in the constructors’ table.
After last year’s Italian GP they were 139 points shy to Red Bull but still held a credible second-place in the standings.
Of course, you could easily accuse any team in F1 of not doing well enough at the moment as Red Bull dominates, but this is Ferrari.
Vasseur is not the problem, the operational mistakes have been plain to see since Ferrari last won a constructors’ championship title in 2008.
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The issue I have is that I am not too sure he is the solution for Ferrari either.
Ferrari say they have learned from their mistakes in 2023 and will put them right next season, only we have heard all this before.
But this time the board of the great Italian car manufacturer must be running out of patience with F1, particularly when they saw their investment at Le Mans pay off handsomely with a win in the 24 Hour race.
Their performance in the Dutch GP however, was again toe-curlingly bad, with pitstops that would not look out of place in a Benny Hill sketch.
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Contract talks between Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes appear to be at a stalemateCredit: PA
Carlos Sainz said they were the “sixth-fastest car” during the race, adding: “I know at some point it looked that we could even fight for a podium, but the reality is that when the race was settled when you look at our pace we were just nowhere.”
F1’s popularity across the world is booming but so far, Ferrari are just making up the numbers – and for those at Maranello, that is simply not good enough.
I ASKED Lewis Hamilton about his Mercedes contract in Zandvoort [you may remember his failure to sign a new deal was the subject of last week’s column].
I asked if there was an update, or any news he could share with us, to which he replied “Nope”. It seems as though they really are at a stalemate and one wonders what impact this is having within the team.
Zhou Guanyu’s crash proves the current generation of F1 cars is not suitable for rainCredit: Getty
I HAVE a very serious concern that this current generation of F1 cars is not suitable whenever it rains.
The Dutch GP was another case in point as the race stewards took another conservative approach when it was wet.
The red flag when Zhou Guanyu crashed at Turn One was understandable as they needed to make repairs to the barriers and recover his car, however, it was some of their other decision-making which makes me fear wherever we have a wet race.
The issue is that visibility is now the main problem for drivers, rather than a lack of grip, caused in part by the aerodynamic properties of these cars.
They are designed to use the floors of the cars, sucking them closer to the ground and subsequently dispelling the air – and in the case of rain standing water – upwards.
Add in the water already being sent upwards by the tyres and you have a mushroom effect of spray, which is the problem.
F1 are now considering ways to introduce mugrads over the wheels to reduce the spray thrown up, with tests planned for later in the year.
I hope it cures the problem because we are being denied the chance to witness the excitement caused by a wet race.
BBC1’s Jennie Gow is back working in the paddock after overcoming a strokeCredit: Getty
IT was fantastic to see my friend and colleague Jennie Gow working back in the paddock during an F1 race weekend.
Gow, who presents the BBC’s F1 coverage as well as appearing in Drive to Survive, suffered a stroke in December.
She has spent the last eight months learning to speak again. She’s worked so hard and it is wonderful to see her incredible progress.
FABIO QUARTARARO has delivered his damning verdict on Yamaha’s progress in MotoGP saying his current bike is “practically the same” as the bike Jorge Lorenzo raced to the title in 2015.
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Yamaha is joint-last in the manufacturers’ championship after another terrible season.
Unhappy Quartararo, has made it clear he is weighing up his future in the Japanese team as it fails to make progress. More
