#author: leo turrini

[maranello]

PROFONDO ROSSO | Ferrari-Leclerc, ancora non siamo pronti ma…

Leo Turrini, 24 July 2022

We are not ready yet.

I say this as a Ferrarista in love, thinking about my scuderria. We are not yet ready, even though we are only a short time away now. I think this must be the reflection, necessarily melancholy, after the French Grand Prix.

Let me explain. Yes, the Ferrari of 2022 is a very good car. Unfortunately fragile, but competitive on any kind of circuit. The figures, the numbers say so.

A beautiful American website (Fivethirtyeight) took the trouble to calculate the disproportion, in terms of performance, between what Ferrari manages to achieve up to Saturday night and what it capitalizes on Sunday. Well, historically the data was compiled before France!, historically, I said, only Williams at the turn of the millennium, with Montoya of Schumi two, had a worse balance.

We are not ready yet. I'm crazy about Carletto, even stones know that. I consider him an extraordinary talent. I am sure he will mark an era.

At the same time, this season, Leclerc has made two serious mistakes in races while Verstappen stands at zero.

It hurt me to see the boy's sadness in the post-race, but I greatly appreciated the sincerity. Leclerc is much better than some ultra fans who I hope will soon forget about Formula 1.

His attitude reminded me of Schumi's episode in Monte Carlo in 1996, when after he went off the track on the first lap sprinting from the pole he presented himself to reporters and took all the blame, defending the team from any suspicion.

We are not ready yet. On management errors on the part of the team we have been racking our brains for weeks, and even on Sunday in France, the, moreover inevitable, stop of a magnificent Sainz was anything but exemplary.

Again, it's a matter of getting used to the tension of supremacy.

We are not yet ready, as the instances of unreliability that have strained my liver and yours have shown.

Well, all that said, I remain convinced that we are on the right track. This will not be, I suppose, the right year. But this is simply a matter of putting all the things together, enhancing the best we have, starting with Leclerc, fighting a political battle over the absurd hypotheses of regulatory reforms about 2023. I hope John Elkann will do his.

In the meantime, there would be a race to win immediately, in a few days, in Hungary.

[dobbiamo-capire]

Monza in half: new referees, same mistakes

The italian press is back! Most of it is against the shit show FIA did and how that ruined Monza because like one of our comm said, “they ruined the race but then they use the shot from Monza podium to promote the sport”. And isn’t he 100% right.

As always, translation under the cut, every mistake is on me, pls share to support my effort in sharing italian press with you all✨

Unanimous booing, by those who were dressed in red and those in orange. The final of the Italian Grand Prix under the Safety Car regime has displeased everyone, winners and losers, and that is what the FIA should think about. Does the F1 of the show and sold out at every Grand Prix have to take a step towards the public even at the cost of not fully complying with the verdict that has emerged on the track in terms of performance? It is a question that Stefano Domenicali (CEO of Liberty Media) and Mohammed Bin Sulayem (president of the FIA) will surely ask themselves. ‘Change the referee, not the mistakes,’ is the title of Leo Turrini’s editorial on Il Resto del Carlino “The logic of the sport would have imposed to grant Leclerc the extreme chance. I don't think there are conspiracies. Instead, there is a worrying incompetence, already seen in the past. This Formula 1, so loved by an increasingly young audience, has a moral obligation to respect those who follow it.”

‘Hashes and steps back, inadequate Federation’ is instead the title of Giorgio Terruzzi's comment on Il Corriere della Sera. “They are slow, always a little arrogant. They are the men of the International Federation. A company to change after a few too many messes, like the one that handed over the title to Verstappen, Abu Dhabi 2021. Some are fired, others are appointed, rarely based on authority. In Monza on Saturday it took them almost 4 hours to dial the starting grid, losing the path dealing with the drivers penalties. Not satisfied, they put on a (slow as hell, can’t be a literal translation) finish yesterday, complete with tractors on the track under safety car – entered at the wrong time – offering the same scene that in 2014 in Japan cost Bianchi his life”, the attack that starts from the columns of the Milan-based newspaper.

‘Monza in half’ is instead the opening of Repubblica: “One hundred years of solitude. Without a race-worthy ending, without battle and without joy. Not even for those who win, Max Verstappen, even if that success would have been deserved anyway. And instead he is unfairly booed. Monza celebrates a century disatisfiing everyone – the bitter observation underlined by the newspaper based in Rome – on the grandstands there are 150 thousand fans who paid to see a show, not a train of immobilized cars passing under the finish line. The booing is mainly for the race management, which does apply a regulation, but in a clumsy and slow way. Perhaps overwhelmed by the still alive ghosts of the deconclusional epilogue of the last championship in Abu Dhabi, after which, apart from the threats to Michael Masi and his exit from the Fia, the rules were changed precisely for situations similar to those of yesterday.”

‘Fifth Power’ headlines La Stampa, focusing on Max Verstappen’s fifth consecutive victory: “Max Verstappen’s Italian mission ends with the fifth consecutive victory, the eleventh of the season, the 31st of his career. One of the ugliest, though deserved: the race was neutralized by the safety car with eight laps to go and ended like this, with the cars being columned and the ban on overtaking. At the checkered flag, the fans pour themselves as traditionally along the entire straight line and whistle the Red Bull champion because he doesn't drive a Ferrari. Nothing else they can reproach him: he is the best. He had never climbed the podium in Monza, he had never experienced the emotion of seeing that red multitude that now disputes him. He will come up for the championship perhaps already in the next Grand Prix in Singapore, where a series of results could guarantee him the second consecutive title.” Booing or not, Safety Car or not, with 11 wins out of 16 races played in this 2022 Max Verstappen already has the first match point on the championship in the sixth final race of the season.

[maranello]

PROFONDO ROSSO | Leclerc, il fidanzato d’Italia

Leo Turrini, 10 April 2022

Anecdote. Last winter. I was sick (not Covid). I get a video call from Gino Rosato, a pillar of the racing department of the Cavallino. He says: There is a friend here who wants to say hello. He turns the camera. Carletto appears and says: Cheer up, we'll have fun together in spring. And indeed. Leclerc is the boyfriend of Italy. He has a dream car and he is transforming the dream into a shred of reality. Formidable boy. Formidable Ferrari. Hats off to Mattia Binotto and his team! Sainz threw himself away. Red Bull is evidently breathing down the necks of the engines bequeathed by Honda to keep up with la Rossa. And this is clamorous. Mercedes better but still not competitive for the top. Russell ahead of Hamilton. Now Imola. I can’t even imagine the atmosphere. They will still be ringing the bells in Maranello.

[maranello]

Thoughts from technical analyst Giuliano Duchessa after the Australian GP, on longtime Ferrari insider Leo Turrini’s blog: 

Why Ferrari has a clear advantage 13 aprile 2022

The dawn of Melbourne has shown some interesting things that the first two appointments have to some extent masked by some unfavorable episodes.

Ferrari has an advantage in knowledge of its car that is not always quantifiable. Some choices, risky for others, have not frightened the Maranello technicians. One of them, above all, is the technical acceptance of porpoising, or some of the problems that can result from it, in order to maintain high performance in medium-fast corners.

Problems that are of a purely physical nature, i.e. affecting the driver's driving or concentration. Then there is the risk of eating the rear tires too soon. Something that - you will remember - happened to Mercedes in Bahrain, forced to repeated pit stops.

The set-up chosen by Leclerc and his engineers has paid off, frankly beyond expectations. A little more load at the back, certainly as much load as possible at the front and a few more HP [reportedly 5 HP] to try to distance or defend themselves — if necessary — from Verstappen's DRS in the 18 seconds of the fast section, the one opposite the finish line.

In order to put more load in front, you have to be able to afford it, in terms of budget. That is, so that the overall balance does not suffer. This was Red Bull's limit, and by the way, it was what the old SF21 could never do.

Christian Horner's car was simply too worse than expected to be true, a bit too close to Mercedes (especially with Perez) than to Ferrari.

Does that explain a Mercedes improvement?

No. Both Russell and Hamilton did a very good race with the material at hand. However, they didn’t get close to the Ferrari, Mercedes would have finished at 50 seconds without the neutralizations. Max — just to say — at 25 or 30 seconds. So the RB18 has taken a step backwards, we think on this occasion, net of the "unacceptable reliability", words of the world champion.

The developments that Red Bull will bring - in theory at Imola - will help it 100% because we're talking about a weight saving with ballast-load-consumption balanced a bit better. Something close to 2 tenths. Ferrari will respond by trying to lower the car even more when an evolved base under development arrives. What worries the opponents is that the F1-75 is still travelling higher off the ground, which suggests that it has unexplored setup possibilities should it resolve. The lower the single-seater is, the better the efficiency on the straight, plus it is finally possible to soften the suspension in favor of the slow.

We move forward with the certainty that Ferrari knows its car better than anyone. An invisible and uncopiable advantage, even for Newey.

Ferrari can prepare the car well because they know what to expect, as was the case with the long-awaited SF70H, but this time they will also have the power... in a targeted manner, when needed.

Of course, the road is long and today’s evaluations can change compared to Melbourne, I remember Kimi giving 20 seconds to Alonso and Hamilton in 2007, but then Mclaren reacted immediately. So, be careful, but I never thought that Albert Park was a track that is not very indicative, for sure it has always shown who has a good front end.

Finally, I would like to add that the beloved Imola ⁠— after years of undeserved oblivion ⁠— has finally ended the wait for what it deserves: a great public, and a Ferrari that arrives as a winner.