There is a phrase in Italian that applies to Ferrari. Anche quest’anno si vince l’anno prossimo.
Which according to my weary spy in the Scuderia camp roughly translates as ‘the winning year is always the next one’, an expression of eternal hope in the face of perpetual disappointment.
This has been an affliction at Maranello since 2008, the last of the world’s most famous and historically successful team’s championship title years. That was the constructors’, while the last drivers’ crown came 12 months earlier through Kimi Raikkonen.
The bad news is that, going into this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix at Monza, nothing is better now than even a year ago. The record is stuck. The same mistakes are being made.
They pinged old team principal, Mattia Binotto, and brought in a new one, Fred Vasseur, but the structural mess remains.
Ferrari continue to struggle with the same mistakes being repeated and nothing improving
Fred Vasseur has cut an unimpressive figure since taking over the team during pre-season
Ferrari’s last constructors’ title came in 2008 with Felipe Massa (left) and Kimi Raikkonen (right), with the latter the most recent to take the drivers’ title a year prior to that
Poor, miscast Vasseur, who doesn’t speak Italian and admits he is struggling with his lessons, has cut an unimpressive figure since taking over in pre-season. He laughs through press conferences and mumbles generalities about no single aspect needing rectifying but broader change being required.
It sounds woolly in a sport that is hinged on minute particulars. He has talked of the importance of recruitment yet the revolving door has barely swung.
There is nothing to suggest Vasseur is remotely qualified for the job. His only experiences of running F1 teams were, briefly, at Renault and then at Alfa Romeo, where he demonstrated no obvious vitalising capacity. His best results were seventh with Renault and fourth with Alfa.
A top seat at Ferrari is not a perch for anyone finding his way. Too much political intrigue lurks around your shoulder blades for that.
This is a truth Binotto discovered last November when he was assured by company chairman John Elkann that his job was safe. A public statement to this effect was issued — then the bread knife was inserted.
Bernie Ecclestone urged them to appoint Flavio Briatore in Binotto’s place. Broad shoulders, big ego, wily operator, and one with a successful backstory in the sport. That suggestion was rebuffed, Briatore’s colourful background counting against him. Clearly, reconstruction is needed. In this, Vasseur would do well to pick out the maxims implicit in the late Niki Lauda’s observation of how well the team worked during Michael Schumacher’s heyday. He talked of the necessary balance.
‘The Germans are cold, unbending,’ he told me. ‘The Italians are all romance and spaghetti, and the British acted as the bridge between the two.’
Charles Leclerc is quick but often overstretches beyond his car’s capabilities and crashes too often
The Vasseur years at Ferrari are unlikely to rectify matters and help them push back at the top
Romance and spaghetti is winning right now, judging by the car, which Carlos Sainz described last weekend in the Netherlands as the sixth fastest, a lamentable state of affairs. The Spaniard is dependable enough at the wheel.
His team-mate Charles Leclerc, though faster, overstretches and crashes too often. Suffering a damaged floor in Zandvoort, he was passed by AlphaTauri’s emergency debutant Liam Lawson, as if a symbol of Ferrari decline.
The malaise is deep. Nothing is improving. The Vasseur years are unlikely to rectify matters.
Then, they start again. Anche quest’anno si vince l’anno prossimo.
Albon’s talent shining through
Alex Albon, once blown apart in a short and unnerving spell as Max Verstappen’s team-mate, is proving what Red Bull always believed, namely that given a timely chance he would prove his talent.
He was probably exposed to Verstappen too soon, but he is now driving consistently well at a Williams team revivifying itself under thoughtful new team principal James Vowles.
I’d go so far as to say that Albon, 27, who would have finished higher than eighth in the Netherlands but for strategy faux pas, is pushing Fernando Alonso hard for the second step on the podium of the season’s star performers.
I hope for Williams’ sake they can keep hold of him.
Alex Albon (right) is pushing Fernando Alonso hard for the second step of the podium of the season’s star performers
Why Max’s dominance is no longer boring
It grew dull and now it’s grown interesting again. I’m talking about Max Verstappen’s dominance.
Who wouldn’t want a tight scrap for the title instead of a one-man stampede? A last-lap rematch with Lewis Hamilton would be perfect. We are denied that, or anything like that. This is why it got boring.
But now the degree of Verstappen’s superiority is so conclusive it has taken on a golden glow of its own. A fascination has arisen over whether he can maintain his high-wire act to win every remaining race of the season. It is 11 out of 13 so far, with nine races remaining.
A fascination has arisen over whether Max Verstappen can win every race until the end of the season
His sure-footedness in the eye of much potential jeopardy in Zandvoort on Sunday was exceptional. Rain, a stop that plunged him behind Sergio Perez, his supersonic closing of the gap; a deluge, and a restart that featured Fernando Alonso’s hot breath trying to blow him towards a slippery end.
Alonso was voted driver of the day. Sorry, this jury says he was the second best driver of the day, and there’s no disgrace in that.
A measure of Verstappen’s work in progress even now is that Lewis Hamilton never managed such a long, unbroken passage in the years he drove an unmatched Mercedes. Indeed, he sometimes took half a season to reach his best. He also had more off days than Verstappen, who currently has none.
Debates will rage on who the better driver out of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton is
The debate over who is the better driver must wait until another day, preferably when some dust has settled. For now, compelling evidence is still being produced — by Verstappen, that is.
One further point: Verstappen has reduced to shivering wrecks every team-mate he has encountered. That can’t be said of Hamilton, who was beaten by three of his colleagues over a season: Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg and George Russell.
Would Max have lost to any of them?
Rain uncertainty
Rain fell in Zandvoort. Guanyu Zhou hit the wall. The Dutch Grand Prix was suspended for 45 minutes.
Some of this time was dedicated to mending the barrier the Chinese driver had penetrated. But the suspicion here is that the prolonged delay, to the frustration of observers, hinted at a fundamental dilemma in contemporary Formula One with its ever-beadier eye on safety and litigation: is it a wet-weather sport or not?