Verstappen’s win in Azerbaijan blows up Maranello project, Leclerc slumps emotionally and Sainz remains just a perk
There are constants that are more or less fixed: that you can see ‘Pretty Woman’ on a television channel almost every week, that Real Madrid is the favorite for the Champions League, that elections are the festival of democracy and that you can never trust Ferrari going have a quiet season. In a very long campaign of 22 races, it took only a third to practically blow up the foundations of his project for the 2022 campaign.
The data is devastating: Charles Leclerc has taken six out of eight possible poles this season, taking just two wins. Having a clearly superior F1-75 (at least so far), with the reliability issues Red Bull has had, without a team-mate to tighten the nuts (Sainz has struggled to adapt from day one and is still working there on) , Leclerc has gone from the big dominator to the trap, not only from the first but also from the second step.
It has long been suspected: the worst possible team to chase is Red Bull and the most feared rival to defend against is Max Verstappen. The Dutchman is already nearly a race ahead of the lead, only if Sergio Perez is included, but he already has enough margin for Leclerc not to overtake him in Canada anyway. From being a reference, to being a candidate and sinking.
It’s an endemic feature: Ferrari doesn’t know how to navigate calm waters. Almost since its inception, the Scuderia has been a volcanic organization, not enjoying internal and external peace even in its most dominant years. What happened in Azerbaijan deepens this idea. Not only because of the reliability failure they had with their two cars, one because of a hydraulic problem and the other because of a total breakage, but also because it was clear that they were not the big favourites. In the first corner, Leclerc let Pérez pass and a pole position that made him the favorite disappeared. Even when Red Bull and its two drivers failed at the pit stops just before the Monegask’s retirement, they were not seen as favourites.
There are many factors that cause Ferrari to enter a constant cyclothymia in every Grand Prix they face. Unlike Red Bull or Mercedes in recent times, hopes that they will find a smooth path are long gone. If it’s not a wrong strategy, it’s a pit error, a contact with a rival, a bad start or a driving error. There hasn’t been a perfect weekend for the Italian team. On the other hand, they’ve had enough in Red Bull at the moment of truth: this Sunday is the best example.
When Pérez was ordered not to jump because Verstappen was coming faster, he did so without much effort (albeit not with pleasure). The one-two was in hand and from the team’s point of view it was relatively irrelevant which driver came out on top. But being aware of the huge bite they could get in the drivers’ world championship, it made sense to prioritize the current champion’s candidacy.
This is only possible if you have two teams in a certain equality of performance. That is not the case at Ferrari (not even at Mercedes, where George Russell is a whole Lewis Hamilton in the ears), as Carlos Sainz does not find the right step. Like a man who moves his hips to the beat of a bachata when the music is salsa, the driver from Madrid disappears when his help is needed. It happened on Saturday in qualifying in Baku, when he not only lost pole position in the final attempt of Q3, but was overtaken by the two Red Bulls, and it happened on Sunday, when he barely finished third in the start. danger put Verstappen until he left.
The days that are going to happen until Canada get complicated in Maranello. The image of the mechanics and technical members of the team collecting their equipment before the end of the race in Azerbaijan says it all, because apart from the rush to leave for Montreal as soon as possible, they also wanted the rest of a race in which they were defeated again. Red Bull, as a team, and specifically Verstappen and Pérez as drivers, had painted their faces.
Source: La Verdad
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