Montezemolo: "Ferrari has a lack of competitiveness"
F1 News
- GPblog.com
Ferrari has been waiting for a new world title since 2007 and although they were able to come along a couple of times, they have not been able to grab a championship so far. Competing against Mercedes is a challenge, but the lack of competitiveness also counts. That bothers former Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo.
Annoy
In conversation with Speedweek Montezemolo says: "It annoys me that Ferrari has been without a title since 2007 with Kimi Raikkonen. But what bothers me even more is that we can't manage to keep the championship open until the last race", the Italian means that Ferrari had to quit a little too early in recent years.
"Of course it's no fun if the title is lost in the last race of the year. We kept the chance and hope alive a couple of times, but that hasn't been the case for years. That's a shame."
Lack of...
According to di Montezemolo, this is mainly due to the instability of the Italian team. "The main reason: the lack of competitiveness of the cars, plus problems with stability. But we also have other factors, the racing tactics and the drivers".
"If you want to win in Formula 1, all these elements have to be perfectly balanced", and creating that balance is what Ferrari is struggling with. Ferrari also has a new team boss since 2019, which of course also has some effect, but so far nice words: "Mattia Binotto is tireless".
The first rider
Montezemolo also got into who should be the first rider, as he has had experience with this in the past. "Schumacher had several drivers at his side - Eddie Irvine, Rubens Barrichello, Felipe Massa. They could all win races, there's no doubt about that."
"It was also clear that Michael was number one. That was not our decision, that was a dictation of the stopwatch", in other words: the one who is the fastest has the right to take the place of first driver. Experience or preference is less important.
Something Leclerc proved. It came in at Ferrari as number two, but in a year he managed to place himself at the same level (or even higher) than routine driver Sebastian Vettel.