Curious how history sometimes takes unpredictable paths. Even in racing. While waiting for Formula 1 to turn U, or at least ninety degrees, from the Red Bull monopoly that has made the recent past of Grand Prix monotonous, we note that already today – before the 2024 single-seaters take to the track for the Bahrain race – the 'frame' of the paddock has already started to present a different menu.
We are obviously talking about Horner-gate, the current strong point of Grand Prix communication. Horner in, Horner out: people have been writing and sneering about the (alleged) indelicate photos of Red Bull's historic team principal for weeks now. And now the conversations move to the common theme that attracts avalanches of comments and likes and predictions: what kind of Red Bull will remain from this Horner-gate? Still as dominant as in 2023, destined to remain at the top of the statistics for decades, with 21 victories (19 by Max) out of 22 races on the calendar? Or strong but no longer very strong? And why not weakened by the internal struggles that were the backdrop to the entire Horner affair, with the Thai ownership against the Austrian cell of the team in the Dynasty style struggle that will design the team of the future without the founder Dietrich Mateschitz anymore?
The Horner affair brought the Circus back to a level of gossip that the circuits had not seen for decades. Women and scandals and spicy situations instead of aerodynamics and curves and regulations. In a distant but not very distant time, alongside the knife fights between Senna and Prost, stories of lovers hiding in hotel rooms proliferated while some wife arrived unexpectedly at a team dinner. And then Piquet's rapid-fire wives with related pregnancies; the gossip about Senna not being straight; Jacques Laffite's wife slipped into Prost's arms… One might say: rubbish, compared to a team principal thrown in front of a grand jury for crimes against morality, against me too and against decency in one fell swoop. But back then we had fun, and with Horner-gate, let's face it, maybe not having fun, but we talked about it a lot.
And let's get to the point. In this modern F1, gossip about internal messes exists about Horner and therefore Red Bull; exists on a Mercedes that has had its soon to be red Hamilton flag blown under its nose. And then there's Alonso who in his second year at Aston Martin already speaks not so well of the new single-seater, a Haas that sends home Gunther Steiner or the man who has kept it standing for the last five years, an F1 war – FIA is less and less underground and will soon, it seems, cause victims in the field. And in this entire earthquake, already underway or on the way, here's the surprise: Ferrari is stable. She is immobile, centered on herself, committed to this start to the championship which (in Vasseur's words) must start from the good things she showed in the last part of '23. That is, second place in the Constructors' World Championship lost for a mere trifle to a Mercedes who boasted over 50 points ahead in Monza in September. That is, a victory with Carlos Sainz in Singapore and a more than close one in Las Vegas by Charles Leclerc, who after a difficult summer has signed five front row starts in the last five races of the season.
Let's start from where we managed to arrive a few months ago, this is the Vasseur mantra. A few words, which are based on a real method: that of small steps, of exploiting every minimum available foothold. When, after three-four races, it was clear that the 2023 Ferrari was much slower than Red Bull and even some others, the French manager – who had arrived in Maranello with everything already done: single-seater, team – was very clear about the objectives : 'With this type of regulation and this absence of testing, half a second cannot be recovered. Unless we move on to a completely different technical project, and this is not our horizon'. So, on with the policy of continuously improving: always, eliminating or greatly limiting errors, monetizing every chance. An objective that the Cavallino really began to put into practice only starting from Monza, and from then on the steps of improvement were continuous and the missteps were fewer and fewer, until the finale of 2023 which has already been described.
This is the Vasseur Method: no flights of fancy, always finding yourself in the best position to exploit every little opportunity, zero or almost zero errors. A method that rests on something that Ferrari had already built before him: in 2021, the second year of the terrible two-year period 20-21, president John Elkann called Diego Ioverno, now back on the wall as sporting director, and told him: ' It's okay to go slow. But why are we so behind even in pit stops?'. No sooner said than done: after months of studies and a thousand simulated tests at home in 2022, Ferrari was the best team overall in terms of duration/effectiveness of pit stops. A trend confirmed also last year when the second best tire change ever was red.
This too is a policy of small steps. Error reduction. After that, if the FS-24 is really the one seen last week in the tests, the reduction of the gap from Red Bull will truly be a reality. A reality on which, then, the Vasseur Method will be able to make a further difference. At least to give us a good fought World Cup.
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