What is the political power of Ferrari in Formula 1? The question is more than legitimate, considering what happened at the Monaco GP and the controversy caused by the race management decisions around the Scuderia and its rivals.
In the past, the complaints about the figure of Michael Masi have been numerous, but Niels Wittich and Eduardo Freitas, his substitutes this season, do not seem to have improved the outlook much, having shown themselves to be not very authoritarian and oriented towards making decisions that protect your choices.
John Elkann y su familia en la parrilla of the GP de Mónaco
That said, Ferrari’s silence is surprising: despite the fact that John Elkann , the president of Ferrari, and Piero Ferrari , the vice-president, were present in the Principality’s boxes, the Cavallino ‘s management once again opted for silence, even before certain prevarications that only Mattia Binotto tried to defend very weakly.
The television production of the race repeatedly showed how Sergio Pérez and Max Verstappen stepped on the yellow line at the pit exit. The championship promoter revealed the regulatory anomaly by issuing numerous replays, but the FIA turned a deaf ear to this information.
If these single-seaters had been those of Ferrari, we would have seen a spectacular reaction from Toto Wolff or Christian Horner . However, in the case of Monaco, only calm words were heard at the Scuderia from team boss Mattia Binotto , who approaches victories and tragedies with the same tone of voice.
“When you go first and finish fourth there is something that has not worked”, Binotto explained, “and that is our responsibility, but I feel that there has been a bit of injustice because, at the start, five minutes before [starting] the race, the tires had to be fitted and Red Bull was without tires. Why? And it is not clear why the FIA, with three minutes to go, decided to postpone the start. But the regulations say that when there are five minutes left, the tires must be assembled. Period.”
Certain. But no one raised their voice, no one raised the issue in that long wait for the exit behind the safety car. Why?
Ferrari’s attitude was also too relaxed in the complaint about the yellow lines touched by Verstappen and Pérez, as they decided to approach it in another direction.
“Rather than protest against Red Bull, which I don’t care about, because I don’t want to enter this type of competition with them, we complain to demand clarity from the FIA about their decisions.”
Ferrari has become too timid in defending its rights, but the responsibility cannot and should not fall entirely on Binotto’s shoulders. In Montecarlo there was also the leadership leadership of the Cavallino, which preferred to turn its back on the conflict.
What sign has been given with this attitude? Certainly not the strength expected from a team like Ferrari. There may have been disappointment over a potential one-two that evaporated at the nicest of times due to poor decisions made by the wall (and Binotto took the blame), but how to win the rest of the battles that should see Ferrari fight for the World Cup to the end is not leaving the team manager alone in the face of danger.
The feeling left by the Scuderia is that it is still a ‘hostage’ of that secret pact that it signed with the FIA to close its black motor season of 2019, whose irregularity could never be fully demonstrated.
From Maranello a large fine was paid (the amount of which has remained secret) and two years of ‘purgatory’ in the category, but that time is behind us. It is time for the Italians to look ahead and not let them run over them, because if not, Red Bull will keep the wings.
