When the Ferrari SF21 was unveiled at the end of February last year, Mattia Binotto stated categorically that they would improve on their disastrous 2020 campaign. The team boss did not promise wins or the title as that was not possible due to the decision of keep a large part of the cars from the previous year as a savings measure due to the pandemic, but promised that there would be progress. And the Italians have done it.
Recovery shoots were evident in early summer. Ferrari took two pole positions and although they never had the real pace to be in contention for victory, they were already showing to be stronger than with the SF1000. Charles Leclerc failed to defend first place at his home race in Monaco and it will never be known whether the 24-year-old could have risen to the top in the Principality.
In 2020 , Ferrari finished sixth in the constructors’ standings, after taking three podium finishes, but without any pole positions and of course without any wins. In 2021 he finished in third position in the championship, with five podium finishes (although one came after Sebastian Vettel’s disqualification in Hungary) and two pole positions.
The victory is resisted despite the recovery of the team, but Leclerc had many options to win in Monaco, before the Maranello team failed to detect the breakage of an element in the transmission shaft of their car after their accident in Q3. He also came close to claiming an incredible first position at Silverstone, after the title contenders collided on the first lap at Copse. Only Lewis Hamilton’s comeback in the Mercedes W12, which was almost 0.8% faster (according to Autosport calculations) than the SF21, prevented Leclerc from lifting the winner’s trophy.
Ferrari’s modest but significant success in 2021 is down to the improvements it has been able to make to SF21. This includes the new gearbox design and general work on the rear of the car (as well as adapting to the new floor and diffuser rules) to improve the previous design’s poor performance in this area.
Front-end handling on potholes and curbs made them quick in Monaco, and helped Leclerc’s other pole in Baku. The team’s pace was also good on other high- downforce circuits, such as Hungary or Mexico, as well as bumpy tracks, such as Austin.
Leclerc’s performance at Silverstone was quite unexpected, but the SF1000 was not without the downforce generating elements needed to perform well on this type of circuit. The reason is that Ferrari’s controversial deal with the FIA over its previous engine deprived it of power. With the updated power unit the team introduced for the start of the current campaign, they improved their speed – although still some 20bhp less than Honda and Mercedes – and meant Ferrari could stay in contention at races such as the Grand Prix of Great Britain, if opportunities presented themselves.
There is still frustration in the team due to Leclerc’s abandonment of the Hungarian GP due to the crash caused by Lance Stroll in the first corner, given that he (and Daniel Ricciardo on the outside) was going to take advantage of Valtteri Bottas’ incident with the rest of the team. single-seaters in the head zone.
But Ferrari’s 2021 season took off after the summer break, specifically after introducing a new hybrid system at the Russian GP in September. The update only made it to Leclerc’s car, and Carlos Sainz had to wait to receive the new component – which doubles the capacity of the energy storage – at the following race in Turkey.
The team indicated that it was worth taking the grid penalties because the operation of the improved hybrid system would allow critical real-world data to be collected for adaptation in the 2022 car. The new parts are believed to be worth close to 10bhp in total power stakes, cutting the gap to F1’s leading engines by almost 50%, but allow the hybrid system to be used for longer without running into problems. overheating.
The extra benefit of having updated engines was clear from Sochi. In the four races since its two drivers started using the upgrade without having to take penalties, Ferrari have outscored McLaren (although admittedly they suffered a terrible run of incidents in both of their cars in those grands prix) by 65 points to 18, and that was key to securing third place in the constructors’ championship.
McLaren insisted that Ferrari always had a stronger package in 2021, pointing to its two pole positions earlier in the season, while the British team only managed it with Lando Norris in a rain-conditioned session at Sochi, where Sainz was joined by him in the front row. Everything was very similar to what was experienced in the late ’90s and early 2000s, although they were not fighting for the top positions on a regular basis.
Although Ferrari’s results in 2021 compared to 2020 speak for themselves, it is worth considering what else the team needs to improve on to challenge Mercedes and Red Bull in 2022.
The big rule change coming into force from next season offers the opportunity for any team to make a big step up the grid, but paddock experts insist that the skills and technology that the leading teams have developed so far this moment in the hybrid era will carry over to some extent next year as well. Whether it’s tire performance tricks, set-up fixes or engine upgrades, few expect current “Class A” teams to suddenly lose what makes them special.
The great hope for a team like Ferrari is that the almost exclusive title battle between Mercedes and Red Bull ends up affecting one – or both – having to devote additional, perhaps unexpected, resources that would have otherwise gone to their cars of 2022. This could give a start to the new era of F1, albeit with a little delay, with the experience of knowing that the fight for the championship can affect the long term.
That’s something Ferrari has lacked over these two seasons, struggling in the middle, but where else does it need to be stronger to match Mercedes and Red Bull? Motorsport.com approached Binotto during the Qatar weekend and his response was routine, but no less revealing for that.
“Looking ahead to 2022, we are obviously in the factory working very hard to develop the new car, and we can only wait and see (how we do) when we get back on track at the start of next season,” he replied. “If I look at the team, that’s what we can judge at the end of Qatar. I think the team, since the beginning of the season, has made a lot of progress in terms of strategy, the way we manage communication with the drivers, understanding what we’re doing.”
“A lot has been improved in terms of tire management. (Qatar) is a circuit where the tires wear out a lot due to the high energy of the corners. I think that since Paul Ricard (in June) the team has developed a lot of little tools and methodologies to try to do better, and (in Qatar) our two drivers always tried to control the pace, never push the limits, which can be very difficult for them because they really want to go further.”
“But we told them to always try to control the speed because we knew it was a circuit that put a lot of wear on the front wheels. I think the fact that we didn’t risk it at the end (meant) that we might have some luck, but we’ve also seen some benefits in the results (with Norris among the drivers who punctured)”.
“And lastly, the pit stops. They were managed well after a hat-trick, and the mechanics were tired: they had to change the chassis on one car (Leclerc’s) but they did a fantastic job of pitting the two cars in a row. Overall, judging how the team is doing is progress and that’s great, especially looking ahead to what we’re going to do in 2022.”
One of the critical decisions Ferrari made in its plan to get back among the F1 leaders and finally enter the conversation for titles again, was in the aerodynamic development of SF21.
Apart from making some adjustments to suit a “Z-shaped” floor in the early races – it used a conical one in pre-season – Ferrari has not made any major aerodynamic developments. They shifted their focus in this area to 2022 very early on, but it’s interesting that, had they not made such positive progress through the early stages of their recovery plan, Ferrari might have been able to update their 2021 design.
This is due to new rules regarding limited time in the wind tunnel and the use of CFD, F1’s new (and very small) form of balance of performance, which came into force this year. Now, the teams that are lower in the constructors’ championship can use up to 12.5% more development time than was allowed in 2020, while at the same time the team that finishes higher enjoys 10% less.
Ferrari had an extra 2.5% to use for finishing sixth last year, but his position midway through this term, where the allocation of this lead changed based on results as of June 30, meant he went down to 5 % less than what started in 2021 (2.5% less than the time allowed last year) for the second half of the season. But Binotto was adamant that the benefits of the progress Ferrari’s recovery plan has gained “naturally”, and that the extra hours of work on its wind tunnel and CFD kit are worth losing.
“We never developed the 2021 car,” he said of Ferrari’s approach to resource allocation and planning. “We introduced a couple of developments at the beginning of the season and that’s about it, except for the power unit later on. But that was a development with a view to 2022, so all our efforts from the beginning of the season have always been for the next season’s car, we never compromised on it. So let’s just say it never crossed our minds to even lose something from 2022 for the benefit of 2021 (with extra testing time).”
“We knew that we could fight for third place at the beginning of this season, we knew that it could be very tight, but we knew that our main objective in 2021 was not third place but to try to improve in all the details as a team. And third place has It was simply a result of that. I think that if we are reaching third place today it is because the team, the way of working on several weekends, has certainly improved a lot since the beginning of the season and not because the car itself has evolved.”
Binotto’s words reveal a lot about the path Ferrari traveled last season, but also about how far it has to go to catch up with the teams ahead in the constructors’ championship. He highlighted how the team worked in terms of tire management in Qatar, making the complicated one-stop strategy work for both cars to be in the points.
But Sainz and Leclerc drove very conservatively to make sure their tires would last long enough. They were afraid of a repeat of the tire problem from the French GP that Binotto refers to, where the team had its first and only race without points of the season.
The team immediately moved to Maranello to work for three days on the simulator to find out what had gone wrong. This work resulted in better tire management, like the performance that Leclerc displayed so well at Silverstone. F1 tires will change for 2022, with the arrival of 18-inch wheels , and those who are able to understand the new tire will gain a huge advantage.
This is a lesson that could be seen in the battle between Red Bull and Mercedes, especially in Turkey and Qatar, where decisions about car set-up and adapting tires to new surfaces cost Red Bull dearly. The fact that the Ferraris were so far out of contention for the podium (and qualified behind the Alpines) reaffirms that there is still some progress to be made on this front for 2022.
Another pending area is the performances in the garage. Binotto suggests that Ferrari have outperformed considerably, and that the Qatar double pitstop was indeed very impressive, but not seeing the driveshaft damage overnight before the Monaco race in Leclerc’s car cost an almost certain victory.
No team is infallible, as evidenced by Mercedes and Hamilton’s DRS failure in Brazil , which led to his disqualification from qualifying. But Ferrari cannot afford to make such a mistake again if it is finally back in contention for the championship in 2022, especially if the differences between the teams are as small as F1 hopes thanks to the new rules.
There is also the power of the engine. The new hybrid system has provided a substantial boost, but the Ferrari engine has not yet caught up with Honda or Mercedes . If Ferrari can get through this (without controversy, as in 2019) it will be an F1 force to be reckoned with once again.
One thing Ferrari doesn’t need to improve on to match Mercedes and Red Bull is its driver line-up. In 2021, Sainz and Leclerc finished separated by just 5.5 points, the closest difference between teammates. This is a big improvement on 2020, when Vettel only scored three times fewer points than Leclerc.
Sainz has impressed many in the F1 paddock with how close he has been to Leclerc in his first year as a Ferrari driver. The Monegasque has had the highest peaks – like that Silverstone race – but the Madrid native’s own efforts have made the Monegasque’s results seem more erratic, because his new teammate was able to come much closer to what Vettel achieved last year. past, he even surpassed him at the end of the season in Abu Dhabi.
“I said at the beginning of the season that I think I have the best line-up on the grid,” Binotto said of his drivers. “I still believe it’s the best lineup, because of the way they’re working together and the consistency of the results.”
Binotto can claim that Ferrari has the best driver pairing, but that will be tested when George Russell joins Hamilton at Mercedes from the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix. And if Ricciardo manages to perform like Norris at McLaren, the Italians will have a bigger challenge.
Leclerc and Sainz formed a very good relationship at Ferrari, but that friendship will be tested if they find themselves in a title battle at some point. That’s another crucial element that Binotto and company must hope has improved, because in the last year that Ferrari was able to upset Mercedes and Red Bull – 2019 – things between Leclerc and Vettel imploded spectacularly.
But before you have to worry about those things happening, the only big test that matters is about to come for Ferrari. It is about seeing how the car they sacrificed development for in 2021 behaves in 2022. The same goes for other teams, but what is clear for Ferrari is that it not only improved its terrible SF1000, but also made considerable advances such as team as the year progressed. And all this without the great aerodynamic improvements that are usually carried out during a full course.
That is a good omen. Ferrari was a team on the rise in mid-2021, and it looks like it is continuing the momentum towards the new era of F1.
