F1 | Ferrari are now third force, but 2022 remains a big unknown

There would be a somewhat timid "yeah", with arms half raised, almost ashamed, and yet Ferrari in its own small way is managing to archive the Constructors' third place, keeping faith with what was its seasonal objective after the disastrous 2020.

In an interim year, the main objective of the team directed by Mattia Binotto was to get back up and move from the disappointing sixth place in 2020 to being the first of the others, behind the unattainable Mercedes and Red Bull. An objective which, given the size of the team, should be the minimum wage, but not so obvious after the technical abyss of the previous season.

And to think that the championship of Lando Norris, one of the drivers with the highest performance, the McLaren double in Monza, seemed to have in fact handed over the Constructors' podium to a more deserving and in fact faster McLaren. And instead for a few races McLaren has effectively "capped", as if it had stopped, also thanks to a bit of bad luck, see Norris starting at Interlagos, but overall Woking gives the sensation of having lost that ability to surprise that he had at the beginning of the season. At the same time, Ferrari has risen to the next level, the new hybrid has given the Cavallino a further boost, elevating the package to that of the third force on the track, without any more doubt.

The SF21 is a single-seater renewed at the rear and with a good power unit, aerodynamically valid and without the drag problems that afflicted the SF1000. It shares the front with the unfortunate 2020 car, which in fact has given Binotto's men more than a headache this year too. The good thing is that the Scuderia has always been able to react to difficulties, working on the set-up and making the appropriate changes, just think of the tire problems suffered at Paul Ricard which have never appeared in such an explosive manner again.

This means that after years of data analysis and structural and organizational refinement (the various reshuffles, the renovated wind tunnel, the new simulator soon to be operational) we can finally take for granted the very important correlation of data between track and virtual, between what happens in simulations and computers and the fundamental findings of asphalt.

In short, Ferrari has demonstrated that it knows how to get back on its feet and that it knows how to be competitive, but there is still a "but". In fact, the Red team remains at a sidereal distance from Mercedes and Red Bull, often finishing the GPs around fifty seconds behind the leaders. A detachment that is in some ways depressing. And the Mercedes engine, at least in the version admired in the Hamiltonian show at Interlagos, is still scary. Let's also say that the Honda power unit is no joke at all; Will Ferrari have a power unit at the level of Mercedes and Red Bull in 2022? Maybe.

And then the new regulation is a blank sheet of paper to be interpreted, with the new ground effect single-seaters still an unknown. And here it is Newey's pencil, an aerodynamic genius, that is frightening. For Ferrari it is a normal present and an uncertain future, we are clinging to the regulatory revolution, hoping that in the end it is not a Leopard revolution. A minute of separation from the leaders under the checkered flag would be difficult to digest in the next season, indicated by the leaders as one of redemption, and long awaited by the eager Leclerc and Sainz.

Antonino Rendina

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