Ferrari wanted. Even used, if we look at the performance of those 'doc' a few years ago. But new would be better.
But what happens to Ferrari? Everyone hears this question, those who in some way have or have had to do with the racing scene. And you go and explain that Formula 1 is one of the most complex worlds in sport and beyond. One wins: all the others lose. So losing is there, if only for a series of courses and appeals. And losing badly, too: that is, without having a chance which is one to aim for the full result. It's an iron logic: Milan fans and Inter fans resign themselves, what a lean time (unless they're three years of age).
But with Ferrari it's a different story. Let's think of a 25-year-old boy: Ferrari wins for him, full stop. He was ten when Michael Schumacher started taking her up; eleven to the first world title lost by a whisker; 14 to the first of 5 world titles in succession. And let's talk about the Drivers' Championship, because he had already celebrated the one reserved for the Constructors at the age of 13, in 1999. And then, even after Schumi's farewell: Raikkonen again world champion in 2007; Constructors crown the same year and also the following one. Dramatic, that 2008: Felipe Massa crossed the finish line at the last GP in Brazil as winner of the race and as world champion, only to be fooled a few seconds later by Lewis Hamilton who in the last two corners, getting rid of an adversary suddenly and suspectably slow on the wet from the final rush, he secured 5th place which earned him the title won the most in extremis in the entire history of racing.
There is plenty of material, therefore, for a young person to calmly ask himself what happened to this Ferrari which suddenly, from 2009 onwards, hasn't been able to get one right. And here we would have to delve into the hyper-specialist theories necessary to really understand racing. But this is not the place. It is useless to worry about aerodynamics and engine horsepower, also because the technical regulations in force (and which incidentally: they have dehumanized Formula 1) tend to level things out, to make everything the same. To debase, in fact, the male component.
Argument to be taken with a grain of salt, the latter. Too easy to slip on the banana peel of Schumacher's explanation. In the too simple, too guarantor sense of Ferrari no longer wins because it no longer has Schumacher. Motivation that, in our opinion, makes sense: Schumi was a champion out of category. Without him, Ferrari has lost a lot, a lot in terms of specific weight. And let's not fall into the trap of making comparisons with Schumacher who today gets one right and ten wrong at the wheel of the Mercedes: another single-seater, another team. Other Schumacher, above all: time, in racing, ages with effects that are too different from those he gives, for example, to wine...
But let's stay on the topic of men, because this is where we want to end up. Let's look at it, today's Ferrari. Same president: that Luca di Montezemolo who in just a few weeks will be celebrating 20 years at the helm of the Cavallino, and who in this fifth of a century has given the red-colored fans the most extraordinary streak of successes in the history of Grand Prix racing. But other people have changed; and here are pains. Almost simultaneously with Schumacher, characters of the caliber of Ross Brawn and Rory Byrne left Maranello. For the less enthusiastic about racing, it is, respectively, an Englishman who led the technical management at Ferrari for about ten years and a South African who divided his time between design, technical optimization, study of future evolutions. But above all: Jean Todt is gone. He passed away due to evident cycle-over depression. It was he who invented the Schumacher cycle, falling in love with the pilot as one does with a son, managing his missteps with infinite patience because he knew he was dealing with a phenomenon. In fact, he repaid it with the aforementioned triumphs, so everyone was happy. But immediately after Schumi's farewell, in 2007, Todt was no longer enjoying himself. His sad eyes on him are unforgettable, even if at the end of that season the world title arrived thanks to Kimi Raikkonen who had taken Schumi's place.
And here we are at the point. Via Jean Todt, embraced by Montezemolo the path of internal growth, with many Italian specialists projected high up in the organization chart, the New Ferrari had the sole task of continuing on that path. But she didn't succeed. It should be said right away: no fault of the individual. Stefano Domenicali, director of the team since then, has preparation, experience cultivated from the bottom up and distilled up to the top, knowledge like no other of the racing environment and the regulations and technical-sporting traps. But what is missing, compared to the golden years of Schumacher, Todt, etc., is something else. Wanting to risk a synthesis (and knowing you're making someone's nose turn up in Maranello) perhaps hunger is no longer the same. Schumacher was a cannibal, like the Eddy Merckx of cycling in the sixties and early seventies. He didn't even leave the crumbs to others. It wasn't enough for him to win: he wanted to humiliate others. To the point, at times, of exaggerating and drowning in too much adrenaline, slipping into sometimes blatant and incredible mistakes. But he was also a cannibal Jean Todt. He was from before: since his winning days at the helm of Peugeot in rallies and endurance races and in African raids. A good boss, he said, he must be bad. In Ferrari he became even more so: by imposing a military-type order and organization on the team where being content, taking a breather, meant surrendering. Then conspire with the enemy. Then be banned.
We exaggerate. Deliberately. But not too much. At today's Ferrari, a practically perfect mechanism, as the great Fiat boss Sergio Marchionne defined it, there is something too much: that practically. To be removed. To be eradicated. Change that with a team that has won everything, that has earned everything, that has seen and heard everything, is not easy for anyone. Nobody, above all, who is already within the team. This is why, in the first line, we have chosen the new Ferrari hypothesis…
