How Ferrari went from pole position to a mini-crisis

It is a cliche in Formula One these days to say there is still a long way to go in the season, but both of Ferrari’s title leads have disintegrated through a series of concerning issues. The uncharitable will say that they are all too familiarly Ferrari – a little too flaky to mount a sustained title challenge.

At the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, it was a well-worn story: promise in qualifying on Saturday, taking first and third on the grid, before it all fell apart on Sunday for both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, the former with a sudden power unit failure and the latter with yet another off-track moment in an error-filled season.

Red Bull pounced – though not without some vulnerability of their own – to take maximum points in Barcelona. In Miami, Ferrari were second best to Red Bull, but at least Leclerc managed to bring it home in a creditable second.

From being 46 points ahead of Verstappen after the Australian Grand Prix – and even 27 after Imola – Leclerc now trails Verstappen by six points in the drivers’ championship. Ferrari are 26 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’.

How Ferrari felt the pain in Spain

Firstly, you have to feel for Leclerc. He is an exceptional driver and pulled out an exceptional lap under pressure in qualifying to take pole position. Yet it was his own mistake in the first run in the Q3 that meant he needed to do it.

In the end it did not cost him pole, but were Verstappen in possession of a working DRS on his second run it could have been a different story. Though Leclerc did not make any errors on Sunday and should have taken victory, his Saturday error was perhaps another instance of over-driving, which is his biggest issue.

It often seems like he is trying to get 101 per cent from the car. But he is not driving the problematic Ferrari cars of 2020 and – to a lesser extent – 2021. In those years, if he extracted the absolute maximum from his machine, he might have been in with an outside shot at a podium. And he did it on a few occasions, too.

The difference this year is there are larger consequences when you are fighting for the championship. His spin in Imola when chasing down Sergio Perez, dropping him back to sixth from third, looked like a rookie error. That put him in a more vulnerable position in Spain, when his DNF cost him greatly. Without it, he should still be leading Verstappen.

With the non-finish from first, the swing in Spain was more than 30 points. Ferrari’s issues have mostly been with their drivers, but the power unit failure means he surrendered his championship lead to a man with the marginally faster car and who has won every race he has finished this season. It feels a little ominous.

Sainz fails to deliver again

Still, spare a thought for Sainz, whose season is getting more and more wretched with each race. His season has been riddled with significant errors and crashes at almost every round.

In Jeddah he crashed in second practice, in Australia he qualified ninth before slipping back at the start and then dropping it embarrassingly at the chicane. After a fightback from 10th in the Imola sprint to start fourth on Sunday he crashed with Daniel Ricciardo on lap one to finish pointless. In Miami he put it in the wall again in second practice. Not each incident was necessarily his fault, but you make your own luck in this sport.

In Spain it was another race mistake, but this was perhaps the most painful. He should have been in contention to profit from Leclerc’s eventual retirement and Verstappen’s spin. But a maiden F1 win in front of an adoring sell-out home crowd was never on the cards as he could not keep it on the black stuff yet again.

Why? It is hard to say exactly. Sainz says, like Verstappen, he may have been caught out by a gust of wind at Turn Four. He says he is still struggling with the balance of the car and that is evident in his mistakes and his 0-6 record against Leclerc in qualifying. That highlights something fundamental in his relationship with the car, especially when Sainz and Leclerc were so close last season. It is perhaps similar to some of Hamilton’s issues with the W13 in the early-season.

Have those plaudits from 2021 – surprising a few in beating Leclerc – all gone out of the window now? There cannot be many more drivers getting less from their car.

Is history repeating for Ferrari?

In 2022, Ferrari finally have a car that is capable of fighting for the championship. It is a positive for the sport to see them back at the front again and Mattia Binotto deserves a lot of credit for that. But they had that in 2017 and 2018 only for a variety of driver and operational errors to scupper any chance they had of taking the fight to Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes any deeper into the season than the fly-away races in Asia.

In fairness to Leclerc, it is only his mistake in Imola that has cost him significantly. Beyond that, he has started every race on the front row and every race he has finished, he has been either first or second.

Sainz’s problems are more deep-rooted but are certainly not helping Ferrari in their battle with Red Bull, nor Leclerc in his fight with Verstappen. Compared with Sergio Perez, who has finished second in three of the last four rounds – he is doing exactly what he needs to.

Ferrari’s first costly mechanical issue has come at a bad time. But it seems like the DNFs and errors will define the season as much as the exceptional drives. It could be a recurring theme, as Christian Horner noted after the race.

“I think these things always balance out over the course of a year. They were unfortunate today, we were unfortunate in two races. Both Mercedes were on the limit at the end of the race. Everybody is very much on the limit.”

That is a good thing for Ferrari. Their rivals have tripped up in varying ways to this point, either through reliability or just being off the pace, as Mercedes have been. Opportunities should come their way. Verstappen’s DRS failure – and the team’s failure to fix it from Saturday to Sunday – should be concerning for Red Bull. The Dutchman had a largely frustrating afternoon before Leclerc’s retirement.

The bad thing is looking at the direction of travel and trends. That tells a worse and far more concerning story than the standings show. Yes, it is still tight, but their leads have disintegrated with great speed and to a car who looks, overall, to be quicker and with more reliable drivers.