Written by Owen Bradley, Edited by Alessandra Erazo
Scuderia Ferrari. A name which carries such historic weight to it.
Unfortunately, Ferrari have had a championship drought for a long time, with their last World Constructors’ Championship win in 2008, and their last Drivers Championship win in 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen.
Ferrari’s luck has not been great since 2008, despite picking up World Champions: Fernando Alonso in 2010, Kimi Raikkonen’s return to the team in 2014, and Sebastian Vettel in 2015.
These World Champions seemed unable to end Ferrari’s run of bad luck, with Sebastian Vettel clearly frustrated after failing to re-enact his hero, Michael Schumacher - in winning a World Championship with Ferrari.
In 2009, there was a huge rules reset which Ferrari adapted to, although not particularly well. In fact, the Ferrari was bad enough to make Kimi Raikkonen leave the iconic team at the end of ‘09 and try his hand at Rally, and even NASCAR.
So, the team picked Fernando Alonso for 2010, the two-time World Champion proving to be a great driver already, winning the championship in both 2005 and 2006, and worthy of driving the Ferrari F10.
However, despite Alonso’s best efforts, in 2010 he took the championship to the finale at Abu Dhabi, and got stuck in dirty air behind Vitaly Petrov’s Renault.
Dirty Air is something we still frequently see in Formula 1 today, with a great example being the dirty air and DRS (Drag Reduction System) train that Lewis Hamilton had to endure in the 2022 Imola Grand Prix.
In 2012, Fernando managed to somehow drag an awful car to a championship finale at the Brazilian Grand Prix, Interlagos. Alonso’s famous death stare after losing the 2012 World Championship proved to unfortunately be a metaphor for his time at Ferrari, getting close - just not quite close enough.
The 2014 F1 championship was a great season, especially great considering it was the first season in the Turbo-Hybrid era, however, not quite great for Ferrari.
Ferrari had the driver line-up of Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso - three World Championships between them.
Sadly, once again the team didn’t quite have the car that the likes of Mercedes had, and Ferrari could only really hope to pick up lucky wins and podiums, often finding themselves fighting with Red Bull - something which they’ve been doing for a long while now.
The main issue with Ferrari appears to be that, when they have the perfect car - their drivers falter, and when they have the perfect drivers, their car falters. For example, Ferrari had a great car in 2017 and 2018, but sadly Sebastian Vettel made some small errors in 2017, and in 2018 - a pinpoint moment for the career downfall of Vettel, was the Hockenheimring at Germany, crashing out of the race from the lead.
With young and fresh blood in the team, Ferrari’s youngest driver pairing, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz - only time will tell to see just how this championship will go, up against the likes of 2021 World Champion Max Verstappen, and Red Bull Racing.
What’s so special about this season, is that Charles Leclerc, who joined the team back in 2019, has got the championship lead, and his teammate Carlos Sainz, definitely has the car, but needs to be at one with it, in order for his success to start.
2022 has seen Ferrari rise back to the front two Constructors, after being largely uncompetitive for the championship since 2018. With Leclerc and Sainz both having moments this season where they seem uncomfortable, it appears that, just like 2017 and 2018 - the car is there, they just need the drivers to step up.
Could the 2022 F1 World Championship be Ferrari’s? Let us know in the comments below!
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