The defiant hope behind Ferrari's vital 2022 F1 mission

After two years of mediocrity not befitting a team as successful or mighty as Ferrari, 2022 is widely seen as the year it can become a force in Formula 1 yet again. It’s a year where, at last, there can surely be no excuses.

The misery of 2020, when it struggled with an underperforming power unit and endured its worst season for 40 years, was a sobering experience for Ferrari. But it managed to clamber out of the doldrums and make significant progress last year, finishing third in the constructors’ championship after a season-long fight with McLaren.

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Yet even through that 2021 battle with its great rival, Ferrari made clear that it wasn’t exactly make-or-break whether it came out on top or not. Third or fourth isn’t first – the only classification it can truly accept – and the gap to Mercedes and Red Bull was still sizeable. The best chance to make that up would only come once the new regulations arrived in 2022.

It made the launch of the new Ferrari F1-75 – named to represent 75 years since the first ‘production’ car by Ferrari, the 125 S – a significant moment in the narrative of the season. It could, and frankly should, be the car that ends Ferrari’s longest win drought since 1994.

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“Expectations are high, because we are Ferrari,” said Charles Leclerc, summing up the mentality bred throughout the Scuderia’s rich and successful history. “We are a team that is expected to win all the time.”

It’s been two and a half years since the last Ferrari win, at the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix, and over 14 since its most recent drivers’ championship courtesy of Kimi Raikkonen. Any extension of those unwanted records this year would surely go down as a failure – and inevitably pile pressure on the man leading Ferrari’s F1 hopes, Mattia Binotto.

Team Principal Mattia Binotto isn't dwelling on the pressures that accompany the rules reset for 2022

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

But Binotto didn’t dwell on the pressure at the launch last week or what failure this year would mean. He acknowledged to feeling responsibility, of course, but said the most important thing for Ferrari this year was for the team to become competitive once again.

“For a long time we have been saying that in 2022, that’s our best opportunity to be back to being competitive,” he added. “Honestly, the way I’ve seen the team working, I’m proud of the way they made it, very united. I’m not considering failure, because I don’t think that’s the way it is. We are simply focused on trying our best, raising the level, and have a good start to the season.”

The mood coming out of the launch was one of defiant hope, not labelling 2022 as being make-or-break. This is never a time of year where a team will set firm targets or promise X number of race wins, yet Ferrari made clear that it sees a great deal of opportunity in the new season. For Leclerc, the unity that Binotto spoke of that helped get the team through the difficult recent times is exactly what could make it so strong this year.

"Last year at the end of the season, the gap was still very big. Our objective for 2022 is being back to being competitive, and being competitive means being capable of winning races" Mattia Binotto

“What makes me confident about this year’s car is the work that I have seen in the last few months,” Leclerc stated. “That has been absolutely incredible by the whole team. It’s been a long time that we’ve been working on this car now, and I can see how well we’ve been working, so that gives me the confidence for the future.”

But even Leclerc conceded that it is naturally impossible to know whether or not it will be enough until qualifying begins at the Bahrain opener and the true pace of every car becomes clear.

Ferrari made decent progress last year, notably in the final third of the season after an upgraded hybrid system, introduced mainly as a trial for changes for 2022, helped it pull clear of McLaren in the pecking order. The SF21 wasn’t developed past July’s British GP because full attention shifted to the 2022 car, which also benefited from added development time in the windtunnel under the new Aerodynamic Testing Restrictions (ATR), a first-of-its-kind success handicap.

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff was quick to note the ATR’s impact on Mercedes when asked about Ferrari’s chance this year.

“Having more windtunnel time is of course something you need to bear in mind,” he pointed out. “The advantage of finishing sixth [in 2020] versus first over the course of the season is a couple of tenths. And that, of course, you need to catch up.”

Ferrari has benefitted from increased windtunnel time that it hopes will allow the F1-75 to challenge at the sharp end

Photo by: Alessio Morgese

Even with the new rules, few expect the advantage of the big teams to be wiped away overnight, least of all Ferrari.

“We’ve got a clear ambition, that is Ferrari’s ambition, my ambition, the drivers’ ambition: we need to become world champion,” Binotto declared.

“But we know as well how difficult it is to close the gap to the best. Last year at the end of the season, the gap was still very big. Our objective for 2022 is being back to being competitive, and being competitive means being capable of winning races. I think that’s the way we see it at the moment, and I think we’d be pretty happy if we’re in that position.”

Yet it is not only the rule reset and the additional windtunnel time that should give Ferrari hope for this year. One of its weak spots in recent times has been its simulator, but this has now been replaced by a state-of-the-art facility at Maranello with full driver-in-the-loop capabilities. It will give yet another boost to Leclerc and team-mate Carlos Sainz Jr, who last year made a sound case for being the strongest driver pairing on the grid.

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Sainz adjusted well to life in Maranello, scoring four podiums and even beating Leclerc across the course of the season (although Leclerc did attract most of the misfortune). They’ve become firm friends as well as colleagues, joking that they see each other more than their girlfriends.

The strength of the new partnership has already prompted Ferrari to open talks with Sainz over a new contract beyond this year. But it has also led to questions about what would happen if the team were to find itself at the front again, and if there would be a ‘number one’. Leclerc and Sainz laughed quietly when the question was asked.

“Of course we’ve discussed it,” Leclerc smiled. “That’s why we are laughing, because I think it was two days ago or yesterday. Yes, we are free to fight, obviously without taking any stupid risks because we are fighting for the team, and the ultimate goal is to bring Ferrari to the top. But we’ll be free to fight.”

Team-mates Leclerc and Sainz have a good relationship, and will be allowed to fight each other without a pre-determined number one

Photo by: Ferrari

The question again hinged on the assumption that Ferrari will be a frontrunning team again, speaking to the level of expectation there is from the outside this year.

“Expectations are always high in Ferrari,” said Sainz. “We want to make the brand proud and the history proud. Our target is to be back up there fighting for wins and see what comes next.”

The F1-75 is a break with the past for Ferrari not just by virtue of the new technical regulations. Gone are the traditional red-and-white colours necessitated by the partnership with Philip Morris International, whose long-running sponsorship deal appears to have come to an end. This year’s livery uses a darker red base combined with black front and rear wings, drawing similarities to the Ferraris of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Few would argue against it being one of the best-looking cars on the grid this year.

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But the Ferrari in particular stands out for some of the design approaches that have been taken, especially with the dipping sidepods and pointed nose.

"When designing and developing the new car, it has been aerodynamically driven, so all the mechanical choices have been a consequence of it. All the power unit packaging has been a consequence of an aerodynamic choice" Mattia Binotto

“The Ferrari looks like there’s been a lot of thought out of the box, and they’ve been challenging with these new regulations to try and find the edge in performance,” offered Sainz. “I hope that we get it right and the car is performing well this year, because the car does look beautiful.”

When the technical regulations for 2022 were first announced, there were fears that every car would follow roughly the same design given the restrictions of the rulebook. Yet that has not proven to be the case, pleasingly, with the Ferrari standing out as one of the most striking cars. Binotto was clear in the push for innovation with the radical design.

“It was important for us to be fully open-minded,” he stated. “When designing and developing the new car, it has been aerodynamically driven, so all the mechanical choices have been a consequence of it. All the power unit packaging has been a consequence of an aerodynamic choice. If you look at the car, [there are] a lot of unconventional choices in terms of aero shapes.”

Ferrari pursued an "open-minded" design according to Binotto

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

The innovation from Ferrari is under the skin of the F1-75 too.

“The power unit and engine is certainly a big innovation for us compared to the past in terms of design,” added Binotto. “That is something we may say ourselves, it’s internal so it’s difficult to judge.”

The step forward taken with the hybrid system upgrade late last season does point to the kind of potential Ferrari can tap into, though.

The seismic shift in the regulations means it won’t be clear until the Bahrain GP weekend of 18-20 March who has got it right or wrong, the latter being all the more painful now in F1 given the budget cap, which prevents a wholesale overhaul. Binotto was confident that there would be “flexibility” for Ferrari if it hadn’t taken the right path with its design – but again, it wasn’t a prospect he was entertaining.

“If I’m nervous or not? Honestly, I’m not,” he answered. “The team has improved in the last years, has developed capacity, methodology, new skills, and the way I’ve seen the team work, I think I’m pretty happy. I think I should not be nervous, simply because I know those guys and I know how good they are.”

For all of the self-belief and downplaying of expectations, it’s hard to see 2022 as being anything but a year in which Ferrari must succeed. It never quite delivered during the previous ruleset, despite getting a sniff of the title in 2018, and that makes this opportunity one it must grab with both hands. While the gap to Mercedes and Red Bull was large last year, the lessons learned through its recent struggles should have given Ferrari clues as to what it takes to be a major power in F1 once again.

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It has the new regulations. It has the facilities and resources. It has the drivers. The odds are in its favour. Now Ferrari must capitalise to finally end its win drought – and deliver the title it so craves.

The 2022 season is a vital one for Ferrari as it seeks to get back to winning ways and end the drought dating back to 2019

Photo by: Steven Tee / Motorsport Images