Why Ferrari Suck At Strategy In F1 - [ The Breakdown ]
Hey everyone, welcome to the another edition of “The Breakdown”. Here we will try to analyze events surrounding F1 in a manner that is as objective as possible to offer more insight into how it could affect the sport. Without further delay, here is “The Breakdown”
Ferrari have almost become the laughing stock in F1 thanks to a pretty consistent recent history of botching strategy calls. This trait has proved particularly costly this year as they have already lost a sizeable chunk of points to bad strategy decisions
Why Ferrari Suck At Strategy
It is often easy to criticize split-second decisions made by F1 teams. It has to be acknowledged that F1 teams and especially the strategists are under immense pressure to make the right calls with time often being an extremely limiting factor
As such, all teams make poor strategic calls once in a while. Ferrari just seem to take things to another level and do it with alarming regularity
In 2022 alone, Ferrari have gotten their strategy blatantly wrong at the Monaco GP, British GP, and the Hungarian GP. They have also made a few other smaller blunders as well
3 races out of the 13 so far ruined by bad strategy is a sizeable chunk especially when the unreliability of the Ferrari engine is also taken into account
This is poor even by the most lenient standards that could be applied to an F1 team let alone its oldest and one of its most successful. Trying to get to the root of why Ferrari keep making these blunders isn’t easy
As is usually the case in F1, there are multiple reasons why this keeps happening and here are a few possibilities
Laidback Approach To The Season
Mattia Binotto had in the past stated the following about their objective for the 2022 season while speaking to the BBC
Any one of the remaining teams possibly with the exception of Red Bull would give anything to be as fast as Ferrari are and consequently would give their all to go for the championship
Binotto making such statements publicly, well into season could lead to complacency
Misplaced Personnel
Despite Ferrari being the oldest team still racing in F1, their crew is relatively young and quite inexperienced when compared to their counterparts at Red Bull and Mercedes
Binotto himself is an engineer who has been thrust into the role of the team principal
Then there is Ignacio "Iñaki" Rueda, their Sporting Director and the man in charge of strategy. He too is an engineer whose only previous experience of the role of a strategist was at the now defunct Lotus team
Barring the two fruitless seasons when Sebastian Vettel challenged for the championship, he has never been in the heat of a championship battle. He has never been in a battle as close as the current one with Red Bull period
They lack specialists that the other teams have
It’s also worth noting through the many senior changes that Ferrari have made since the beginning of the turbo hybrid era, an era for which they aren’t well regarded for making wise strategy calls, one man has remained and somehow avoided getting the sack, you guessed it, their head of strategy, Inaki Rueda
Stubbornness
This is one trait that has often been associated with Ferrari from their inception and while it has paid dividends sometimes, it is not without its detriments
For many, it is clear as day that Ferrari have to make a few changes to salvage 2022. However, Binotto has the following to say about it to Motorsport
It’s entirely possible that Binotto is digging in his heels as consequence of Ferrari having been so flippant about overhauling their team structure and personnel throughout the past decade, perhaps the pendulum has swung too far the other way
Plan-Oriented Instead Of Result-Oriented
While most teams tend to stick to two or three strategic options, it has become almost comical how many strategies Ferrari seem to turn up with for each race
We don’t know for sure if they go into races with five or six plans or just use a different nomenclature and to be fair, the assertion of the former is entirely speculative - but it is entirely possible that they keep far too many unnecessary strategy options up their sleeves. Either way, there tends to be plenty of confusion during key crunch moments
There is also a tendency to stick to their pre-race plans even if the conditions during the race aren’t conducive to these plans at all. Often times when they have had to make a call on the fly, they seem to abandon all reason and stubbornly stick to what was already decided before the race
Put all these factors together and combine them with an attitude of stubbornly being unable to accept their shortcomings and you get an almost perfect recipe for taking a brilliantly fast car and a top tier driver pairing and turning it into a painful nigh-weekly exhibition, at least if you’re a Ferrari fan
Will Ferrari be able to honestly address their strategic shortcomings?