Amid all the attention on the fight between McLaren and Red Bull, Ferrari has quietly snuck into the 2024 Formula 1 title fight. How did the Scuderia make it a three-horse race? And can it pull it off?
Ferrari showed a much more competitive face in 2024, pairing solid one-lap performance with much-improved long runs, which were its downfall last year. But its title hopes looked to vanish over the middle third of the season, when McLaren made a huge step forward while Ferrari suffered a rough spell of results. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both retired in Canada, before a floor upgrade in Barcelona led Ferrari the down the wrong path and compromised its progress.
There was a prime opportunity to capitalise on Red Bull's wobbles, but it looked like McLaren had leapfrogged Ferrari as the team that was going to get the job done.
Fast forward three months and Ferrari is right back in the fight, having emphatically overtaken Red Bull and closed to within 29 points of McLaren. So, how did the Scuderia turn its season around so quickly?
Monza upgrades belatedly show their true potential
Other than a smaller batch in Singapore, Ferrari's last major upgrade package came at September's Italian Grand Prix, offering among other bits a revised floor solution to combat the dreaded high-speed corner bouncing problem. That was the main issue introduced by Ferrari's maligned Barcelona updates that set the team back several months of development.
But before those design tweaks really showed their true benefits, Ferrari hit a run of circuits that suited its SF-24 and didn't punish its relative weakness in high-speed corners compared to the McLaren.
Monza, won by Leclerc, was one, before the Monegasque fought - and lost - a thrilling battle with Oscar Piastri on the fast streets of Baku. Then Singapore followed, the scene of Ferrari's only win last year and another circuit devoid of high-speed corners. But neither driver was able to qualify in position, giving Lando Norris a clear run to victory while struggling to make a huge amount of progress from the fifth row of the grid.
"I was a bit frustrated after Singapore, because I had the feeling that the pace was there," team boss Fred Vasseur said. "We were able to fight for pole but we didn't execute the weekend pretty well. We looked at the championship and said: 'Okay, we have to do a better job in the next two or three weekends'."
Then came Austin, with the Circuit of the Americas' demanding sweeps presenting the Monza package's first real test. Over one lap, Ferrari was still behind McLaren and Red Bull as Sainz and Leclerc took third and fourth on the grid, but their encouraging sprint race performance was backed up in the grand prix.
Naturally, Leclerc and Sainz were both helped by Verstappen and Norris battling tooth and nail at the start, unleashing Leclerc into the lead. But Leclerc looked good value for his win from that point, and Sainz undercut Verstappen with strong pace and tyre management to establish a dominant 1-2. Ferrari's Monza package showed its worth, but senior performance engineer Jock Clear said the result was also down to honing in on its car set-ups themselves.
"There were things we did on the set-up; I think we got it wrong in Austria, which is a very similar circuit to Austin, funnily enough," he said. "And since the summer break, we've really got a grip of what direction to go in, both on the development and on the set-up."
"Austin was a proof of that [upgrade] package, but more than that, what we did correctly in Austin was correcting the set-up errors we made in Austria."
Then Sainz got his day in the sun with a remarkable pole-to-flag performance in Mexico, the Spaniard determined to get one more race on the top step of the podium before departing for Williams, while Leclerc had to settle for third behind Norris. Regardless of outside factors, Vasseur said he was delighted with the reaction from his team after its mid-season setbacks.
"Around the UK or Spain we struggled a little bit to accept that we had to do a step back. But the reaction of the team was very good," the Frenchman said. "I have the feeling that we are much more under control, from the start to the pitstops and the strategy.
"Sometimes when you bring [an upgrade] you need one or two weekends to get used to setting up the car. That's probably what happened with us. At the beginning we were thinking that perhaps it's track-related and then we had two street circuits in a row with Baku and Singapore. It's only in Austin that we came back to a more conventional circuit. But it's true that from Monza, we are in a much better place."
Verstappen vs Norris fight hands Ferrari a golden opportunity
Ferrari is also benefitting from the drivers' title fight, with Verstappen trying to hold off nearest chaser Norris in what has been a much trickier Red Bull to set up and drive. The controversial Austria collision lost both teams points, followed by further spats in Austin and Mexico.
McLaren was confident that Norris would have had a shot at denying Sainz the win if he hadn't been stuck behind Verstappen through the first stint. A late error from Leclerc sped up Norris' inevitable overtake for second as he reeled in both Ferraris. Verstappen meanwhile, finished back in sixth with his two 10-second penalties for driving Norris off compounding a difficult race performance-wise.
Therefore Ferrari has probably been overrewarded for its own return to form, but every little bit of outside help counts.
It is very rare for the squad, which carries the hopes of the Italian nation on its shoulders, to get away with being the underdog. But the fireworks between Verstappen and Norris, and between Red Bull and McLaren at large, have diverted a lot of attention away from the goings-on at Maranello. And that happens to be exactly how Vasseur likes it.
"As long as you are all focused on Max and Noris, this is perfect for us," he added. "You can be focused on the fight between Toto [Wolff] and Christian [Horner], between Zak [Brown] and Christian, whatever. As long as we are under the radar, it allows us to be fully focused on what we are doing. This is a perfect situation for us."
So how realistic is Ferrari's title bid? Given its prowess in Monza and Baku, it may well be the favourite for F1's second visit to the Las Vegas Strip.
Brazil and Abu Dhabi are more of an unknown, while the extremely demanding Qatar track might be Ferrari's Achilles heel out of the upcoming four races as it looks ready-made for McLaren's MCL38.
"It's true that the characteristics of the track mean that probably Qatar is not the best one for us," Vasseur acknowledged. "But we were not supposed to get the pole position [in Mexico either]. It means that everything is open."
