The hurdles between Ferrari and a championship

Ferrari has the early lead of both Formula 1 championships. But the team has been here before - and it did not end well.

Ferrari is setting the pace in Formula 1. Can it stay that way?

The turbo-hybrid era has not been kind to the team from Maranello. Their performance has morphed from promising one season to disappointing the next.

This year, Ferrari has cemented itself as the immediate favourite. The win in Bahrain was confident and Saudi Arabia was only narrowly lost.

Their car looks genuinely fast, reliability isn’t an issue, and they lead both championships.

Ferrari must be wondering if it can last.

In both 2017 and 2018, Ferrari lost the development war. Their pace, along with any hopes of a championship, faded as both seasons went on.

“The last two opportunities we had [in] 2017 and 2018 we lost a bit of ground through development,” Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto recently told MotorsportWeek.

“I think keeping up the level of development through the season is always a challenge.”

This year, Ferrari is better prepared to do “a proper job”, Binotto said.

He calls the budget cap a game-changer, saying it has changed the rate at which development occurs. That suggests 2022’s progression won’t be monolithic, but minuscule.

That bodes well given their previous troubles at keeping up, but it also makes it harder to find an edge on Red Bull.

While Ferrari is still widely tipped as the quickest team, Saudi Arabia showed just how tight things really are right now.

And staying neck-and-neck with Red Bull may not be enough.

Max Verstappen outsmarted Charles Leclerc on his way to winning in Saudi Arabia, and that speaks to an advantage he has: more experience.

A younger version of the Red Bull driver would’ve barged past, risking race-ending damage.

Instead, as a newly-crowned World Champion, Verstappen was measured, taking several laps to time the DRS just right.

Then, he made a race-winning pass down the main straight and left Leclerc with little hope of making it back past.

Afterwards, an unusually wise Verstappen quipped: “Patience is always key, especially if you want to fight for the Championship.”

This speaks to what Verstappen has learnt, having now won at least one race in each of the past six seasons.

He has a clear advantage over Ferrari when it comes to experience.

Verstappen has eighteen more wins than Charles Leclerc, and four times as many podiums. Verstappen went toe-to-toe with Lewis Hamilton throughout 2021, and regularly demonstrated just how far he would go to win.

It begs the question: If Red Bull and Ferrari stay neck-in-neck in a budget-capped development war, what role will experience play in settling the winner?