Ferrari must fear: 2020 looks set to be their second worst F1 season ever
General
Ferrari started the current Formula 1 season dramatically. With Charles Leclerc, the Italian superpower managed to book two podium places in Austria and Great Britain, but the gap with the competition in the battle for the F1 world championship quickly increased. Ferrari are now recovering and thus averts the fact that the year 2020 will go down in the books as the 'worst year ever'.
Ferrari are currently sixth in the world championship and that is not what we are used to from Mattia Binotto's racing team. However, the difference to third place has shrunk to 32 points in the last Grands Prix. With three Grands Prix to go, everything is still possible for Ferrari.
Worst result in ten years
How different it seemed three months ago, when Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc finished in a disappointing 13th and 14th place during the Belgian Grand Prix. It was Ferrari's worst result in more than ten years in a race where both cars made it to the finish line.
From that moment on, however, Ferrari have improved albeit slowly. This prevents the poor record of the 1980 season from being broken. The Maranello formation ended that year with Jody Scheckter and Gilles Villeneuve in a hopeless 10th place in the constructors' championship. Not a single podium was scored that season. A few fifth places that year was the best result.
'Record' from 1980 remains
It is remarkable that things went so badly in 1980. The year before, Scheckter managed to win the world title in a Ferrari. During the Grand Prix of Canada in 1980, world champion Scheckter couldn't qualify. Ferrari came to a standstill (in terms of developments).
2020 is not going to be as bad as in 1980. Which is fortunate for Vettel, Leclerc and team principal Mattia Binotto, because you do not want a record like that in your name.
Ferrari want to quickly forget about 2020
1962, 1969 and 1973, Ferrari finished sixth in the constructors' world championship. Niki Lauda then pulled Ferrari out of the doldrums and won the championship in 1975. Ferrari twice finished in fifth place in the World Championship in Formula 1 in its history. Those were the years 1967 and 1981.
If Ferrari fails to outperform competitors Renault, McLaren and Racing Point during the two Grands Prix in Bahrain and then Abu Dhabi, the 2020 season will go down as the second-worst season ever in Formula 1.
This article was first published on GPblog.com/nl and was written by Corwin Kunst