Ferrari – George Talks

Ferrari 2020 Preview

Who knows what you’re going to get from Ferrari these days but there are some certainties, namely it’s a red car, and it comes with a heaped side portion of Italian. Let’s just hope the only bottles we get from the Scuderia this year stay in the VIP sections eh?

Off to a good start, mind. What Mercedes failed at yesterday, Ferrari nailed today. A proper F1 launch even the 90s and early 00s would’ve been proud of. Who needs the Spice Girls when you’ve got an orchestra, a choir, and uh, a DJ? 45 minutes of presser? The whole event was 45 minutes today, and you didn’t have to wait until the end to see the car. At least Mercedes seemed to have taken it in their strides, with a witty response yesterday to Ferrari teasing their launch today. Worth a look if you’ve not seen it.

What was even more brilliant was it didn’t feel sterile. It didn’t feel corporate. If yesterday was Ron Dennis, then today was certainly Flavio Briatore. Yes the tricolore talk was a bit forced down you, but hey it’s Ferrari. The only way it could get more Italian would be if they were to sing the national anthem at the start and bring out Francisco Totti halfway through just for the bants.

Back to the car; no real surprises here. Very similar to last year’s but just fixed now. Gone is that pointless black swoop over the engine. Even the Mission Winnow doesn’t look out of place anymore. Numbers are a bit meh but no one was expecting anything groundbreaking from Ferrari really. The biggest surprises may well yet come when people way smarter than me get their teeth into the aerodynamics. People already looking at that bargeboard, and I reckon the wheelbase is longer. My eyes are dodgy to be fair.

The strength that Leclerc showed from the ‘European season’ onwards certainly established himself amongst today’s racing elite. Winning the pole trophy in your first season in a top car, when qualifying caused problems in your rookie season, whilst dethroning Lewis Hamilton in the process? Now that’s impressive. Arguably in half a season he turned Ferrari into his own team, and probably sent Sebastian Vettel into retirement. Where does he go from here? He can only go upwards, right? I mean car permitting, he’s already shown he’s a deft hand in pressure scenarios. Think Belgium and Austria where he was unlucky to come away second best, both against two of F1’s best in Hamilton and Verstappen. If he can rein it in a bit, I’m thinking about Italy here, then he will become an all round driver and unbeatable on his day. I guess Italy was him putting down a marker, argue for and against his defending all you like but it was a show of dominance, in front of the Tfosi, in your first season in scarlet. That’s championship winning material.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not me dismissing Vettel either. I was hoping the Singapore GP last season was going to see the renaissance of the four time champ. It’s just a shame he hasn’t been able to string the results together. Trying too hard? Burden of leading the team? Couldn’t handle the pressure of a championship rivalry? Choose any answer you like, it’s just not working. Unless we see a Vettel you could even begin to compare to his Red Bull days, it’s hard to see him staying with Ferrari beyond 2020. He may even choose to leave the sport himself, depends what seats are available and feasible (he wouldn’t go to Red Bull if it’s Verstappen’s team at the moment, right?) I suppose. I’d love for him to stay. He’s got the character and the talent to merit his stay, it’s just there’s too many Sbinnalas (r/formuladank) at the moment to warrant a place at the top. Fingers crossed he pushes on this year and shows us his old form.

Like I was saying, who knows what we’re going to get from Ferrari these days. They’ve started making some noises again about a complete redesign for this season. Who knows? I’m guessing Mercedes aren’t going to feel like they’ve got something to hide in testing this year. But then again Ferrari might want to set their stall out early and spurs-y it up again like last year. Let’s hope they’ve got their downforce fixed, so we do have a competitive championship, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Red Bull sneaked ahead this year. Their ending to the season was promising and Honda are showing no signs of slowing down, literally. A competitive Ferrari from weekend to weekend should be the goal, forget the championship. If they’re consistently up there every weekend the championship will sort itself. Keep the confidence in their drivers and focus on 2021.

Ferrari 2019 Preview

As know-it-all bloggers became increasingly cynical, Ferrari actually changed their livery for 2019.

Yes it’s not a huge change, and if we’re honest no one’s expecting it to be. The black was teased in some regard, but it’s not implemented in the best way. Black Mission Winnow turns, what already was an eyesore into an even worse spot on the car. Keep it white. It’s ironic the Ferrari title sponsor doesn’t pop as well as the Ray Ban on the car. If you wanted black on the car, have some sort of design, that isn’t half-arsed like the swoop at the rear, and keep the white Mission Winnow. I feel like I shouldn’t be telling Ferrari how to make the Mission Winnow more visible, especially when it’s such a God awful logo and name for a scheme. I take it back! The black hides it more so we don’t see it!

I can’t make what to think of the matte paint. I don’t think it was chosen to look nice, Ferrari believe it to be lighter. It’s also thought to provide some, slight aero benefit at least when Red Bull revealed their matte livery in 2016. It did look slightly orange under the launch lights, which is not a good look for Ferrari when the iconic scarlet car draws drivers and fans alike. Hopefully under lighter…light it looks less orange, like under natural mid-day conditions for example.

I actually like the front wing, the common design trope of having the first few elements in the primary colour and the rest in a secondary colour has worked well across the grid and this is no exception. I’m actually quite sad the rear wing isn’t as black. I think I’m just trying to look for change when it’s not happening. Maybe if they incorporated the black, with the carbon fibre under body as an odd to 2013 and 2014. But Ferrari’s will always have 95% red on the car so I’m going to shut up now, and not complain that an iconic car hasn’t changed enough.

New Kid on the Block

In an unusual move Maranello have decided to take a punt on youth. It’s a move they’ve not made since Massa joined the red team in 2006, even then Felipe had 3 years under his belt. I can imagine Leclerc’s was hard to ignore last season, and with missing out on 3 years of constructors’ titles (when they’ve made serious challlenges that is) it was not a too difficult decision to make. As I’ve already alluded to, two strong drivers in a Ferrari could easily expose Mercedes’ soft underbelly of Bottas and Hamilton. There were 161 points between the Merc drivers, whilst 70 between Kimi and Sebastian. If Leclerc can keep his almighty pace either this gap to Vettel decreases or he outperforms Vettel, and puts Hamilton under pressure. The result is the same, we should be going to Abu Dhabi with the constructors still in the balance, which should improve the show to say the least. Added to this, we know that Mercedes can be a little slow to react, or do extreme strategies when under serious pressure. Hopefully this year we get the title battles we’ve been robbed of the past 2 seasons.

I hope that Ferrari don’t hang Leclerc out to dry. Without taking this into account, I believe Leclerc will have a similar season to last. He’ll be trying too hard for the first few rounds then he’ll settle and be lightening fast. He may even get into the title battle but as I’ve already said experience will be the key to a close championship, such as the one we’re expecting this year. But I’m still joining the hype and saying Leclerc will win the Ferrari battle this year. He seems like the next big thing, and to get promoted to one of the world’s biggest brands after one season says something.

Having said that, Vettel will have a stronger season. I hoping Ferrari learn to keep cool publicly. Last year Vettel was under enormous pressure, and it showed at Hockenheim. Vettel still is a little rough around the edges in close situations. You could even argue he showed this as early as 2010, where he spun out of Korea if my memory serves me correctly? He got away with that, but Germany was the tipping point for last season, and he certainly didn’t get away with that. Vettel will be beaten this year, but not to the 2014 extent. I’ll be bold and say that the top 3 drivers will be covered by 50 points or so. Both Ferrari drivers will be up there with a car which if history’s to be trusted will be closer, if not faster than Mercedes. You can still never rule out a form Hamilton too.

You can probably guess that I’m saying the drivers and constructors will be split between the teams, and I’ll punt at a Ferrari constructors. The car will be fast but the drivers will lack that edge for this year. Leclerc will still impress and surpass Vettel but not as dramatically as people are making out. But it’s still only a prediction, completely ignoring testing times etc. and I’m just one lonely voice in the wilderness of the internet.