‘You have to know how to lose’, the legendary Rokes sang in the Sixties. And they added to the dose with a hateful ‘… you can’t always win’ that following the exact same musical tempo remained in your memory already at the second listening. Who knows if in Ferrari someone is old enough to remember those notes; certainly someone, on Monday morning, woke up annoyed at the memory of the sporting ruling that on Sunday evening threw the complaint about the line touched by the two Red Bulls at the pit exit. Type: you have lost, nothing wrong; now, however, do not threaten to take the ball home and not let the winner play again.
As he rightly points out Alberto Antonini in these multimedia pages, of Engineers of Monday there is full, and it is useless (and stupid) to lengthen the procession. Lines not to be crossed, calls to the pits disregarded and duplicated with anxiety, like Fantozzi and Filini who, in order to recover the fixing bolt of the outboard motor, end up sending the whole engine underwater and end up entangled in fishing nets. Everything already gutted. All the son of a logic, even if perhaps not always with calculation and sensitivity open to a horizon beyond the contingent moment. And then bad luck, too: Ferrari had a lot of it in Monte Carlo.
However, a doubt remains: leaving aside the rain and the bizarre weather, which were the same for everyone, the red groac in the Principality started with Sainz who refused entry to the pits saying that it was useless to stop for intermediate tires, since soon the slicks would have been more performing. Was he wrong, Carlitos? Frankly no: it was his buttocks that felt how much and how grip was increasing curve after curve; the result he was aiming for was his and, above all, he took responsibility for it clearly, via radio. If his refusal of the pit stop had turned out to be a mistake because, perhaps, more drops would have fallen, the criticism would have been all for him: he had courage. And then he called in Leclerc, who obeyed like a soldier. And he was recalled a few laps later for those slicks that in fact had quickly become the right choice, but by then the entire Ferrari castle had collapsed: wrong call in timing and way (‘Come in! No no: stay out ! ‘, when in reality he was already in the pit lane)… and at that point his double stop against the single of his rivals had canceled any chance of victory, as the Monte Carlo instruction manual clearly states on page one.
But here we don’t ask ourselves why this all happened, or who went wrong. We wonder: when Sainz refused to enter to cover Perez’s first stop, what was Plan B at the red wall? Was there one? And the eventual plan C? These progressive strategies probably exist at Red Bull. And this reality, in addition to an undoubted mix of very quick reflexes and unscrupulousness, the wall of Chris Horner and C. has been able to handle it for many years. The Ferrari of today, perhaps, not yet. And not because of Binotto or Adami or the drivers who do not obey: because Ferrari, at that maximum altitude with a very rarefied air where victory is at stake, has just arrived. Even with a very strong car, perhaps superior, like that of Barcelona and Monte Carlo, then it becomes a matter of experience. Experience learned not on manuals: chewed, digested and sometimes even going sideways; but always at the wall, via radio, on the track.
Here: ‘We must know how to lose’ means this. It is not smiling at bad luck; let alone turn the other cheek. It means: take the lesson home and translate it into a plan B, C, D and maybe even E. They have already worked miracles in Maranello: coming out of a biennial like the 2020-21 one and getting on track with this single-seater and this engine is a giant result. Reacting to the first Red Bull winning developments of Imola and Miami, and appearing on the track in Spain and Monte Carlo again superior, is a terrific blow. And Charles Leclerc, practically perfect from Friday in Barcelona to lap 18 under the windows of his house, completes and makes this exceptional technical state of form shine. And he recognizes it, too, with a refinement that not even the burning disappointment of the immediate post-race and the 38 points thrown away in eight days – absolutely not for his fault – can tarnish. But then he points out: too many errors; we have to learn. Obviously he is right. And in Maranello they know it very well: from today the list of study subjects to win a World Cup is getting longer.
#lose #FormulaPassionit