Ferrari made the decision to forgo season-long development of its 2021 car in order to focus more time on its 2022 counterpart. It has caused the team’s competitors to anticipate a potent vehicle coming from the team’s headquarters in Maranello, Italy, next year.
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Hard Seasons
From 2017 through 2019, Ferrari finished second in the F1 constructors’ championship three times in a row. Ferrari fell to sixth position in 2021.
Between its two drivers, the Ferrari team finished 2019 with 19 podium finishes and three victories. They only succeeded in winning three podiums in 2021.
F1 racing anticipates yearly advancement. The poor results of Team Ferrari in the year they commemorated their 1000th Grand Prix have been disappointing.
It will be devastating for Ferrari if they remain in the same situation as they have been this year next year. Despite having a reputation as the most successful Formula One team, Scuderia Ferrari hasn’t claimed a world championship since 2007. These dreadful outcomes have no justifications.
Since Kimi Raikkonen won the 2007 championship, it has been 14 years since a Ferrari driver won the championship.
Sebastian Vettel, Kimmi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, and Felipe Massa, who was the best driver until his injury in 2009, are all legendary F1 drivers, therefore it is unfathomable to think that none of them could perform well enough to win the championship.
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Laurent Mekies, a Ferrari engineer, has stated that the team’s development of the 2021 car is now almost complete, with focus focused totally on the new age of F1 when it dawns in 2022. However, he adds that this does not imply they have stopped working on the SF21’s shortcomings.
This season, the million-dollar issue is: When should teams start thinking about next year’s car, when the significant set of rule changes take effect? However, other teams, like Ferrari, have had to balance development on this year’s car with that of next year’s machine. For Haas, the solution was to focus immediately on next year’s rules at the expense of this season.
Mekies, a Ferrari Racing Director and Head of Track Area, explained that the Scuderia has made the switch and is not continuing to develop this year’s car at Paul Ricard in front of this weekend’s French Grand Prix.
“From an automotive development standpoint, we have already taken our selections,” he declared. There won’t be a significant upgrade to address these issues [on the SF21] until 2022 at the earliest.
The Frenchman clarified that Ferrari will continue to work on understanding the problems with the SF21 even though they are not evolving it in the conventional sense of frequently producing new parts.
But you can always work on [the problems] by simply understanding them better, and if you understand them better an either because you correlate them better or you simply understand what are the reasons why we are performing a little less in those circumstances an it can open the door to solutions that you can already apply.
And because of this, coming here after a few races in which we experienced a lot of slow-speed bends is still a nice test for us. We want to assess how we improved and whether we gained any new knowledge. And this is the strategy we’re using to fight this weekend.
In the standings heading into the French Grand Prix, Ferrari is only two points ahead of McLaren, but their drivers are anticipating a return to “reality” following surprise pole positions for Charles Leclerc in Monaco and Baku, as well as a podium finish for Carlos Sainz in the Principality.
Ferrari Is Almost Prepared To Abandon Its 2021 Formula One Effort
Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, we apologize, but as the 2021 season drags on, your car will essentially only get less competitive as Scuderia Ferrari claims it will devote “90 to 95 percent” of its attention on creating its 2022 chassis and the new regulations. To try to surpass McLaren and finish third in the championship this year would mean jeopardizing the vehicle for next year.
Ferrari had a bad year in 2020 because it could only finish sixth in the constructors’ championship. The automobile was substantially slower once its 2019 illegal engine was restrained. Consider that. However, the Scuderia has managed to increase the power of its engine for 2021, presumably this time in a legal manner. The SF21 is not as hopeless as the SF1000 from 2020 was.
Charles Leclerc is presently ranked fifth in the global drivers’ championship as Ferrari trails McLaren by just 5 points after the first four races of the season. The squad has undoubtedly discovered the speed required to contend at the head of the middle pack. However, Alpine or Alpha Tauri wouldn’t need much improvement to catch up to them.
The sporting director of Ferrari F1 has vowed to devote all of his attention to the vehicle for the upcoming season, Laurent Mekies. “For us, it is already the situation that we are essentially in full switch. If you want to quantify it, you can call it 90%, 95%, or whatever you choose, but that’s essentially where we are.”
We are focused on 2022, and this is absolutely evident to us, Mekies continued. “The fact that the competition is close enough that moving from sixth to third may just require a few hundredths or tenths of a second won’t change our approach; instead, we’re concentrating on next year. The vast majority of our resources have already been transferred over to it. It doesn’t mean that some aspects of the car won’t alter moving forward since we all adapt to what we learn on the racetrack. Even though the field is competitive, attention is on the upcoming year. It is a straightforward choice for us.”
Andreas Seidl, the team’s manager, commented at the Spanish Grand Prix “If you notice, we have only attempted to make improvements to the vehicle and move its performance forward since the initial test this year. We’ve also included improvements, such as to Portimao, and we’ve added updates for the car here in free practice. And we still intend to release further updates during the ensuing races.”
Afterwards, he continued, “It’s obviously a very close race, especially with Ferrari, and it’s just vital to make sure we keep bringing enhancements to the car in the following races to keep this battle of P3 alive.”
Is Ferrari participating in Formula One again?
Ferrari’s victory in Bahrain was cause for tremendous celebration for the Italian media, where anticipation is already growing and the flag is once more flying high above Maranello.
Ferrari “returns to the top with full merit from Singapore 2019 after two years from the last time,” according to La Gazzetta dello Sport.
Sainz finished a superb second, and here is the double that gets the year off to a good start: Leclerc took the pole, set the fastest lap, and won the race.
After spending months sacrificing the present to construct for the future, Ferrari’s master plan has allowed them to gain ground at the start of the 2022 season, and the Italian press was quick to congratulate Ferrari for it.
According to a Corriere dello Sport article, Ferrari was forced to swallow bitter pills in order to start the 2022 car project ahead of the competition and be in the driver’s seat at the dawn of a new technological era.
“After the allegations surrounding the power units of 2019 and the FIA investigation, it was important to rebuild competitiveness and credibility from scratch.”
Ferrari will be back in 2021.
A new hybrid system’s launch assisted Ferrari in taking third place in part. It was scheduled to launch in 2022, but after opting to launch earlier in late 2021, it was prepared in September and ran eight races as a test.
Why are Ferrari’s results so strong in F1 2022?
When compared to the cars Red Bull and Mercedes only had for the second test in Bahrain, its debut vehicle was possibly several weeks in the making. Ferrari was able to structure its usage of its 2022 development budget on having a cleanly finished car design that it could be confidently use to start the season.
Is Ferrari competitive once more?
New fans will be able to see why Ferrari and its supporters are recognized as the best in Formula 1 history with a swift vehicle. Ferrari will strive to add more victories and titles as Formula 1 continues to attract more fans, something F1 boss Stefano Domenicali — who served as team principal from 2008 to 2014 — and his management group will relish.
Can Ferrari return?
Ferrari has introduced the vehicle they anticipate will put the most recognizable name in Formula 1 back in front of the field in 2022.
Ferrari is looking to capitalize on the blank slate of F1’s rules overhaul to fight for victories and titles again this season. The team hasn’t won a championship in 14 years and is experiencing one of the longest droughts in their illustrious history.
As a homage to the Scuderia’s first cars combined with the cutting-edge design of these new F1 vehicles, they will do so in a fierce-looking F1-75 car with a darker red and black livery.
Charles Leclerc, a teammate, acknowledged that expectations are “very, very high” while Carlos Sainz praised the vehicle as “aggressive, radical, and gorgeous.”
Team manager Mattia Binotto continued, “I’d like the F1-75 to be ready for the fight on the track at every grand prix to go toe-to-toe with our adversaries.
Ferrari, the most famous and successful team in the sport, has recently transitioned from being a consistent title contender to a midfield competitor. However, the team’s improvement from last year, when they placed third in the standings behind Mercedes and Red Bull, plus the fact that they have long been focusing on mastering the new rules give them reason for confidence.
The rules have been changed in an effort to increase the thrill of wheel-to-wheel racing and Grand Prix competition, and Ferrari, which has more resources than most, will hope the change works in their favor.
The F1-75 was unveiled in Maranello and gets its name from a significant milestone for the Prancing Horse—the 75th anniversary of Enzo Ferrari’s introduction of the original Ferrari automobile.
Has Ferrari a chance in the F1 in 2022?
Ferrari has grasped their opportunity and gotten back on track by investing large money in the 2022 car early last year and making the most of the additional wind tunnel budget due to their disappointing season in 2020. Just seven points separate their current total of 124 points from their final 2020 score.
Why is Ferrari in F1 2021 so slow?
In 2020, Ferrari had its worst F1 season in 40 years, finishing sixth in the constructors’ standings with just three podium finishes.
The team struggled with a slow car design and a lack of straight-line speed, which it attempted to address with the revised SF21 car for this season.
Charles Leclerc qualified for the first two races in fourth place, which has been a success so far. At Imola two weeks ago, Leclerc came in fourth, ahead of home teammate Carlos Sainz Jr. in fifth.
It has put Ferrari in the lead of the battle for the midfield, fighting head-to-head with McLaren, and demonstrated that the team is improving again following last year’s setbacks.
The team’s development effort was correlated between the factory and the track, which helped the team’s performance move in the right direction, as team principal Binotto noted.
The relief, according to Binotto, lies in realizing that we are moving in the right directions.
“It is crucial to note that simulations and wind tunnel work now correlate at the track more accurately than they did in the past.
“This inspires faith in the tools and our ability to design for the future. That, in my opinion, was the most crucial item, so it is certainly a relief in that regard.
“It’s crucial that the car is performing better so that we can finish the racing weekend with a better result.
“We frequently stated that our performance from the previous year was unacceptable for a Ferrari brand, so we were aware that these areas were crucial to us, demonstrating advancements in each one.
In the teams’ standings, McLaren presently leads Ferrari by seven points as a result of Lando Norris’s podium finish at Imola, which he achieved after overtaking Leclerc on the restart following the red light.