Written by Owen Bradley, Edited by Ilaria Mastio
Oh, Ferrari, there you go throwing away yet another championship. At least you're consistent. Consistently terrible with championship pressure.
Isn't it strange that Ferrari has won six Drivers' Championships in 22 years in the 21st century? And their last drivers' championship was in 2007, 15 years ago.
The 2022 season got off to a perfect start for Charles Leclerc, as he won the first race in Bahrain. The season was going so well - Max Verstappen and Red Bull were struggling with their new Powertrain, which they inherited from Honda, and they had some reliability issues. At one point in the season, Leclerc was 48-points ahead of Verstappen, but this was overturned within just a few races, as Leclerc made an error in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, spinning around and losing important places and points, whilst Max went on to take the win.
Spain would come around, but Ferrari was in Spain without the S for that weekend, as Leclerc - who was leading the race, had an engine failure and was forced to retire from the race. In Monaco, Leclerc was leading the race and looked set to have his strongest result at the circuit, but that ended up being false hope for the Monegasque, as the team failed to pit him at the right time, and he ended up finishing 4th, off the podium.
Azerbaijan rolled around two weeks later, and both Ferrari’s have had more reliability issues. Leclerc - again leading the race, was forced to DNF once again, meaning he has not finished on the podium since Miami, where the win was taken from him by Max Verstappen.
So, with Ferrari 80 points down in the constructors and Leclerc now 34 points down from Max Verstappen, it means Max has managed to outscore Leclerc by 82 points overall, within about five races.
Without question, Scuderia Ferrari has disappointed themselves and the Tifosi as well. The question is, how can they return to the front this season? Or perhaps we should be asking, can they actually return to the front?
Historically, Ferrari has been relatively strong coming back from the summer break; they have higher speed tracks like Monza and Spa to contend at. However, this season, it is actually Red Bull who looks far quicker down the straight.
Another problem with that Ferrari is that they are lightning fast in Qualifying; however, as soon as it hits race day, the Red Bulls move towards the front and steal the lead off of Leclerc, as Perez did Leclerc at Monaco. Leclerc has been on fire this season; he has put it on pole at 6 of the eight races this year, but Red Bull always finds a way to steal the win off them, or they sabotage it for themselves.
This is somewhat of a depressing article to write, but as Sebastian Vettel once said: “Everybody is a Ferrari fan”, and it is true. Everyone wants to see them do well, and fans of Formula 1 were very excited to witness another championship battle between Red Bull and Ferrari, but Ferrari has once again failed.
I cannot see them winning the championship because there are too many strategic failures on both their part and their car. Therefore, I think they will likely be battling Mercedes in the second half of this season, as long as Mercedes fixes their issues. George Russell has been stealing points off the ailing Ferrari team so far this year; imagine what he could do with a competitive car.
But what do you think? Could Ferrari come back and prove me wrong? Leave your thoughts in the comments down below! I love reading them!
If you’d like to give me any feedback - or just talk pure racing - then please leave a comment below, or you could get in contact by following my Instagram:
And if you’d like to check out a video I made about the 9-time MotoGP champion and legend, Valentino Rossi, then follow this link:
Finally be sure to check out the second episode of the Divebomb Power Rankings Podcast:
Thanks for reading guys, means a lot!