BAKU: A MATTER OF POTENTIAL

The Baku Grand Prix certainly wasn’t one of the most exciting races of the season, with the exception of the final battle between Max and George. Even in terms of the talking points that emerged from the weekend, however, I don’t think there were any major surprises. The race simply confirmed the balance of power we could reasonably expect among the top teams on a circuit with very specific characteristics. Even before the weekend, it was fairly predictable that McLaren and Ferrari would struggle more, while Red Bull and especially Mercedes were expected to be much more comfortable. In the end, that’s exactly what happened.

That’s why I find the level of disappointment and criticism once again being directed at Ferrari somewhat curious. We know that everything surrounding Maranello inevitably gets amplified, for better or worse, but I’m still surprised to see the same outrage repeated every time, even when the circumstances were largely predictable.

In my opinion, Ferrari achieved more or less what it could, and Leclerc perhaps even managed to get closer to the Red Bulls than expected. The limitations of Ferrari’s PU have been known practically since the beginning of the season, so I’m not sure what anyone could realistically have expected on a track like Baku under these conditions. I had already said it at Monza before qualifying: one of Ferrari’s main hopes is to encounter weekends where the maximum energy deployment is limited in terms of MJ, because that at least partially reduces the advantage of the other PUs. Mercedes in particular continues to show superior energy management, even compared with its own customer teams.

At Monza, this dynamic had been fairly obvious. In qualifying, partly because of the characteristics of the circuit, the field had compressed considerably; in the race, however, the gaps opened up again when the available energy went from 5 to 7.5 MJ. Baku didn’t present exactly the same problem, but one fundamental factor remained: a straight that is simply too long for the characteristics of these cars.

It was almost the perfect environment for Mercedes. Over a single lap, the German team was able to fully exploit its potential, while Ferrari had very little with which to respond. Virtually no tire degradation, very few genuinely technical sections, and plenty of 90-degree corners where it becomes extremely difficult to make a meaningful difference. Baku was the perfect circuit to highlight the strengths of Mercedes’ PU and, above all, its exceptional software management, while also masking some of Red Bull’s main weaknesses.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, for example, that McLaren waited until this point to introduce its first truly significant upgrade. The much-discussed reverse wing has barely been used and, evidently, it wasn’t delivering those mythical 10–15 km/h gains people were talking about — although I’m sure some “content creator” personally conducted the wind tunnel testing.

At Woking, they preferred to devote a significant part of their early work to understanding the new PUs before shifting more attention toward other areas of the car. They are still clearly behind in several aspects of how the system is being used, but the MCL40 was fundamentally a good car from the beginning and, whenever the circuit allows it, it can compensate for those shortcomings.

And this is where, in my opinion, criticism of Ferrari becomes legitimate. Not because of what happened in Baku or Monza, but because of what the team failed to capitalize on at circuits that genuinely suited the SF-26. Between pit wall decisions and drivers alternating weekends in which they weren’t particularly sharp, Ferrari has left points and results on the table that were realistically within reach.

The real problem this season, then, isn’t necessarily the quality of the SF-26 itself, but Ferrari’s failure to fully exploit it when the opportunity was there. The performances we saw in Barcelona and Silverstone weren’t coincidences. Tire degradation was high, especially in Spain, while the permitted MJ were relatively limited: conditions that allowed Ferrari to better exploit the strengths of its car.

At the same time, it was unrealistic to think McLaren and Red Bull wouldn’t improve throughout the season. Both still had far too much untapped potential. The RB22, however, remains an overall inferior car to the SF-26, yet it has repeatedly managed to take a podium position away from Ferrari even on weekends when, theoretically, it shouldn’t have been able to. Credit goes to Max and Red Bull, of course, but it is also a consequence of Ferrari failing to capitalize on its opportunities.

Ultimately, the point remains the same: the others had enormous room for improvement in their PUs, while Ferrari had much less. You can introduce new aerodynamic elements, modify the floor and develop dozens of different configurations, but the gains available from those changes remain relatively small compared with the potential that can be extracted from the powertrain and its management.

And that brings us back to the central point: Ferrari has built a great car under a set of regulations in which, however, the PU accounts for an enormous share — I would say almost 70% — of the overall performance potential.

Then there’s another factor that has followed Ferrari for as long as anyone can remember: the burden of its own reputation. It’s something I’ve been saying for years. I’ve heard highly respected commentators argue that Leclerc, with a perfect race, could even have won. It would have been extremely difficult, they said, but still possible.

When thousands of fans are exposed to analysis that creates expectations like these, disappointment the following day becomes almost inevitable. Then the race happens, Ferrari doesn’t win, and suddenly it feels as though something inexplicable has occurred. As if Leclerc hadn’t been eight-tenths off the pace in qualifying the day before.

Leclerc was on the front row, that’s true, but he got there without Kimi ahead of him and with Max clearly being slowed by some kind of issue. Those details completely change how the result should be interpreted.

The same mechanism then fuels criticism of Vasseur, the alleged demands from Hamilton for which there is no confirmation, theories about the engine available to Charles, and an endless stream of narratives that continue to circulate without any concrete evidence behind them. Stories born out of nothing that, once repeated often enough, inevitably begin to shape the perception of the entire Ferrari environment.

People also continue to point out that Mercedes remains consistently competitive despite not introducing any major visible upgrades. But perhaps that’s exactly the point: Mercedes has continued to update and refine the areas that matter most with this generation of cars.

That’s why I expect Ferrari to be significantly more competitive in Malaysia and much closer to the fight at the front. And if that happens, we’ll probably once again see widespread surprise at Ferrari’s suddenly “rediscovered competitiveness.”

When, in reality, the playing field will simply have changed.

© Simone Marchetti Cavalieri