“Next year we will have fun, you will see,” Mattia Binotto told his driver Charles Leclerc over the radio as last season came to a close in Abu Dhabi. Ferrari’s team principal could not have known quite how prophetic his words were to prove but Leclerc’s beaming smile and the infectious joie de vivre he has demonstrated in his driving leaves no doubt as to just quite what a blast he is having. The team have delivered for Leclerc then but now face the altogether more serious business of turning fun into Formula One glory.
Two years ago Ferrari endured a torrid season: their car, with which they would celebrate their 1,000th F1 grand prix at Mugello, was a howler. They failed to win a race and finished sixth in the constructors’ championship, a nadir to which they had not sunk for 40 years. Last season there was an improvement to third but only in a midfield fight far from the dominating Red Bull and Mercedes competition.
Leclerc kept this head down and pushed the car to its limits and sometimes beyond as he reached for performance that was simply not there, while the team threw all their resources at developing this year’s model adhering to the new regulations. It has paid off, with the F1-75 the class of the current field. Finally given the right machinery, the 24-year-old Monégasque driver has definitively proved his promise as a world champion contender.
Leclerc has two wins and a second place from three races. The victories were exemplary. In Bahrain he saw off a boisterous, elbows-out Max Verstappen with the calm precision of a seasoned pro and at the last round in Australia he won with a consummate run from pole to flag, an almost flawless display against which his rivals were powerless. Leclerc has revelled in it, his jovial radio messages to the team and effervescent demeanour reflecting a driver who is loving climbing behind the wheel.
He is on song and Ferrari are the team to beat. It will be some task to do so. While Leclerc has thrilled to the script of the season openers his main rival, Red Bull’s Verstappen, has found his role hard to bear. His car has been forced to retire with mechanical problems in two of three races. The world champion did win in Saudi Arabia but it was not enough to offset the damage done.
With Mercedes still struggling to bring their car up to speed to join the fight with Red Bull and Ferrari, Verstappen is the driver expected to be at the sharp end. His task is now immense. Leclerc leads Verstappen by 46 points, a chasm. To put it in perspective, for the Dutchman to retain the title it would require the largest turnaround of a points deficit since the 25-points-for-a-win system was instigated in 2010. Granted there are more races now, but only four more. Yet it is not an impossible challenge. Sebastian Vettel came back from 44 points down to Fernando Alonso to take the championship in 2012 and even last season Lewis Hamilton overturned a 32-point deficit to Verstappen in the course of two races, before being pipped at the post.
Yet if Red Bull are to challenge Ferrari they simply cannot allow themselves any more DNFs, a fact Binotto noted pointedly with a racing truism in Australia. “To finish first, first you need to finish,” he said. “The reliability is a key element of the performance itself and I think that as a team, we put a priority on it.”
Putting together the full package – development, execution, engineering and driving – is key; Ferrari know their points advantage is not enough. In 2017 and 2018 they opened the season with the quickest car and Vettel enjoyed an early lead. Both challenges faltered as they were out-developed and outraced by Hamilton and Mercedes. In what is going to be a fierce development war this year, Ferrari cannot afford to be found wanting, nor can they be operationally flawed as the pressure inevitably ramps up, as the Scuderia look for their first drivers’ title since 2007 and their first constructors’ since 2008.
If the team take a win at the next round in Imola next week it will be their most successful opening to a season since that title year in 2008. A victory in the home race at the circuit named for their founder and his son, the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, would be particularly sweet.
Enzo – l’Ingegnere, the Engineer – would doubtless appreciate what Binotto has achieved with his prancing horse this season. “A racing car is like a child to me,” Ferrari once said. “Your child is an extension of yourself, you take it to school and when it does well in its studies, when it comes first in its class you are proud.”
They are rightly proud in Maranello, indeed there is an honest confidence at the task ahead that must be daunting to the opposition. “All the elements need to be in place, properly in place, to join the championship,” said Binotto in Australia. “As of today, we are much better prepared compared to the past to do the proper job as well in development.”
This is a feisty Ferrari, the rosso corsa – racing red – fired up for a fight and having fun along the way, a welcome return for F1’s most famous marque. “I hope it continues like this,” said Leclerc. “If it does, then we probably have chances for the championship, which obviously makes me smile.”
