The Formula 1 season is only three races old, but there are already signs: Ferrari has built a winning car again after years and with Charles Leclerc one of the most talented drivers in the cockpit. At the Scuderia they are already dreaming of the world title.
It’s the comeback that so many in Formula 1 have been waiting for: Ferrari is back where the Italian racing team thinks it and that of many racing enthusiasts belong: at the top of the rankings. Only three races have been completed in the new season, but the results prove that the Scuderia has the fastest and most reliable car for the first time since the blissful days of Michael Schumacher. And in the cockpit, Monegasque Charles Leclerc is one of the most talented drivers ever. He’s fast, has strong nerves and is smart. Since his debut in 2018 for the Sauber racing team, he has been considered eligible for the title.
The record so far: Leclerc won in Bahrain and Melborune. He finished second in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. And the results of the second pilot Carlos Sainz are also impressive. He has a second and a third place to his credit. Only in Australia did he shoot himself down and retire. The mishap was only a small damper in the general Ferrari euphoria. The Reds from Maranello are leading by a large margin in both the drivers’ and constructors’ classifications. The season may still be young, but nobody denies that Ferrari is currently the measure of all things.
Charles Leclerc: Now it’s up to me
“We have a car that’s fast enough to win races and maybe the title. Now it’s up to me,” said Leclerc after triumphing in Melbourne, where he lonely dominated the race. Of course, it played into his hands that his biggest rival at the moment, world champion Max Verstappen in the Red Bull, retired with engine damage. But even without this failure, Leclerc would most likely have won the race. The team and driver put in a flawless performance.
The Italian media is already getting drunk on the rebirth of the national sanctuary and its new superstar. The newspaper “Tuttosport” renamed the 24-year-old “Charlemagne” based on his first name, “Corriere della Sera” saw the “total dominance of Ferrari” and the “Gazzetta dello Sport” judged: “Ferrari is like a rocket. Leclerc is a cannibal. Imola is expecting the red king. No one is catching him right now. And the World Cup is no longer a dream.”
The comeback is also being celebrated so frenetically because the traditional racing team has had dark years. In the past two years, they had even slipped completely into mediocrity and were hopelessly chasing the dominators Mercedes and Red Bull. It was a humiliation for the proud Italians. Only in the 2019 season did Ferrari keep up with the Silver Arrows, but only because the Scuderia allegedly (no one doubts that this was the case!) tricked with the fuel supply, which gave them additional speed. The motorsport world association Fia handled the delicate matter behind the scenes with a horse trade, because the complexity of the technical process meant that nothing could be proven to the racing team. But the evidence was enough. Without the cheating, Ferrari fell far behind, the team was down.
And so the era of Sebastian Vettel with the Reds 2020 ended bleakly. The four-time world champion was signed in 2015 to bring Ferrari back to the top. Ultimately, the venture failed because Vettel made mistakes under the pressure, just as the team regularly blundered with pit stops and race tactics. The result was that the relationship between the German and the demanding Italians cooled off more and more.
Ferrari mastered the rule revolution best
There is a solid reason why Ferrari has risen like a phoenix from the ashes: the racing team was the best at adapting to the latest rule revolution. Instead of investing in the current car in the past season, under team boss Mattia Binotto in Maranello, they fully focused on the development of the new car. Those who are not fighting for the world title can invest more in development. While Mercedes struggles with the new aerodynamics and Red Bull suffers from an unreliable engine, the F1-75 runs almost perfectly.
It seems to be repeating what once led to a changing of the guard in Formula 1. After the hybrid turbo engines were introduced in 2014, Mercedes took over the undisputed dominance of Red Bull for many years.
So now Ferrari benefits. The comeback of the most important racing team, which has the greatest appeal worldwide, should fit perfectly into the concept of the owner of Formula 1, the US company Liberty Media. It coincides with a huge boom in the racing series. Five years after the takeover, the renewed marketing, delayed by the corona pandemic, is bearing fruit. Formula 1 offers more Grands Prix (currently 23), in the next few years the cars will race across the Las Vegas Strip at night, the fourth season of the glossy documentary “Drive to survive” will be running on Netflix, and the live broadcasts have been pimped up and under Among global televised sports, Formula 1 has the highest growth rates among youth and female fans. The growth is fueled by the announcement by VW that it will enter the racing series with its Audi and Porsche brands.
Whether Ferrari will dominate the whole season like the first races is not certain. It depends very much on whether the competition succeeds in retrofitting. Only one thing is certain. Ferrari will not slow down and can dream of their first world title since 2007 when Finn Kimi Raikkonen became world champion.
Sources: DPA, “”, “”, “”, “”
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
