Ferrari really dropped all the balls this weekend. Sainz has been in the way of other drivers repeatedly, which falls on his engineer who should let him know when cars are coming. In rainy conditions the drivers can’t see jack nothing in their mirrors and it’s like Sainz was just left to his own devices by his engineer.
Honorable mention for Tsunoda doing his best mobile roadblock impression. Holy heck he was constantly in the way this weekend.
Then there is poor Leclerc. He asked for slicks, and his team overruled him and it caused him to be eliminated in Q2. How much longer can he stomach Ferrari incompetence before he starts putting feelers out for a drive elsewhere? As things are going at the Ferrari strategy desk it’s clear the prancing horse has bolted the barn and his chances of getting a championship is in the low zeros.
You must log in or # to comment.
Ferrari really dropped all the balls this weekend.
There’s still plenty of time for them to step on their own dicks. The weekend isn’t over.
I would laugh but they are less likely to take a win than Vasseur accidentally mooning the cameras as he trips and falls from the pitwall.
deleted by creator
I feel for him. He is one of the fastest drivers in the field, and where others’ (Ham, Russel, Norris, for instance) lack of results this year is mostly down to a bad car package, in Ferrari’s case it’s just strategy and team not listening to their drivers.
I mean the Ferrari is not a slow car, up to Monaco it’s been the second/third fastest car in the field, but the Ferrari clownshoes tripping over themselves has not allowed their drivers to get the most out of the car.
deleted by creator
I agree re the errors. Key difference is that he has zero buffer against the odd error, because when he gets it right Ferrari goes out of their way to screw it up.
And 100% on him trying too hard because he has to try salvage a result against the pitwall’s best attempts to snooker him.
And this reminds me strongly of Vettel’s stint at Ferrari. Just drained the energy out of him.
Before I read your reply, I had the sentence “Leclerc is clearly overdriving to compensate for Ferrari”.
You can see it’s eating him up. The Ferrari deeam is not how he imagined at all.
Seeing him during interviews on french tv is getting more and more heartbreaking. What we see is a broken man, frustrated by so many fuckups that he lost all hope. Fred needs to step up and find race engineers who can handle the pressure.
I feel like he isn’t overdriving anymore. There’s no hope for championship, therefore no need to compensate for the clownery or the car’s shortcomings. Last year’s first half, he could keep up with the RBs by staying constantly at the limit, which left no room for mistakes, while Max could casually sbinalla and retake the lead in 3 laps. This year… yeah.
At this point I feel like a Red Bull drive, where he replaces Perez, is the ideal move for someone as talented as Leclerc. The opening races of the 2022 season really showed that he can keep up with Max on nearly every level. I hope he gets the chance
Unfortunately, as long as Max is at red bull I doubt we will see someone as talented as Leclerc move there. They need a number 2 driver, not someone that can challenge Max.
I would love to see Lando move to red bull if Max goes for an early retirement but realistically they will probably just get tsunoda once checo’s contract expires.
Agreed, they need to find their Bottas 2.0. Perez was filling that role. However, even with such a dominant car, Checo is falling behind the last few races. Would not be surprised if a replacement was called up next year. For sure the year after if there’s is a contract issue.
We were debating this today. Who do you promote? Yuki perhaps?
I feel like the succession plan for Merc and Ferrari have more options than RBR for a Max pairing
Yuki is still too inconsistent, and also to volatile.
deleted by creator
I meant volatile in the car, you are emtirely correct that his outside the car personality seems as mellow as they come.
deleted by creator
Maybe not blameless, but he asked for slicks early on, and given what the other teams who did slicks achieve his was the right call.
deleted by creator
It was very telling when Leclerc said he thinks he should be on soft and the response over the radio was that Verstappen was on the same tyre as him. That’s not the point!
I really think he want out the team but there’s no other options at the minute.
This is such a want and not based in reality:
Whenever HAM retires, Leclerc making the switch to Merc would just delight me. I’d be really curious how he and George stack up
It’s a shame the timing doesn’t line up better with Leclerc’s contract ending/Hamilton’s retirement (not currently anyway).
Lando still the most likely Mercedes pick for 2026 for me.
Where’s the guy who kept a running list of Ferrari mess-ups for the 2023 season? It’s got to be long by now.
Disappointed on behalf of both drivers.
It was such a shame when that guy was banned from Formuladank
Why was he banned?
