One thing is certain: if this Formula 1 has a chance to get out of the current situation of modest interest (or in any case, let’s say, “non-enthusiasm”), this chance is closely linked to Ferrari.
Is it all the fault of four years (almost) of Red Bull domination? Which follow a seven-year period of Mercedes supremacy… Maybe so: the lack of fight, and therefore of uncertainty, puts any sport to sleep and the Grand Prix cannot be an exception. But despite everything, it is only Ferrari that manages to shake. Partly because of the internal duel between Sainz and Leclerc, partly because the start of this 2024 World Cup confirms this thesis. A decidedly more competitive SF-24 compared to last year’s Red shows the only real improvement among all of Verstappen’s rival teams. The only possible exception to an extension of Max’s triumphal march towards a new title. Here, then, is the enthusiasm for the repeated podiums between Bahrain and Japan, not to mention the red double in Melbourne. But there are also long faces for the partial step backwards, in terms of competitiveness, two Sundays ago in Shanghai. Long faces not in Italy, but among all the people who continue to follow F1 with the hope of new horizons.
And now, heading towards a Miami GP where the Cavallino will race almost unchanged single-seaters awaiting the first substantial package of technical innovations, expected for Imola in mid-May, the “Newey affair” arrives.
Let’s be clear: a change of colors for the brilliant progressive who has made Williams, then McLaren and then Red Bull win since the early 1990s is in itself an epochal event. The fact that all this genius then heads towards Maranello is an astral conjunction that hasn’t occurred in those parts since 1996. Today Newey and the seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton; then Schumi and the technical duo Ross Brawn-Rory Byrne. Do you understand why the red passion can only start to fibrillate?
But that is not all.
From the secret rooms of the Cavallino nothing transpires other than dedication to work, attention to the micro-detail of the step by step. Hamilton in the safe and there won’t be any talk about it before the end of the season: for now we just need to focus on Leclerc and Sainz, and their rivalry described as friendly, but which quite often turns into blowouts as happened in China two weekends ago. And also on Newey: complete silence. A long approach journey with the headlights off.
It is worth pointing out that at the time of writing, the whole Newey story is wrapped in a thousand layers of question marks. One thing is certain: with the British genius now on the market, given the gap from Red Bull, all the teams would like to take him home. And in fact we are talking about Aston Martin and its alleged blank check; of Mercedes oriented towards Newey also to give away a renounceable bait for Max who is in turn fed up with the Red Bull atmosphere and courted without much mystery by Toto Wolff.
Could a Newey not be of interest to Ferrari? No, he couldn’t. The perhaps not very empathetic critic Fred Vasseur is only interested in one thing: winning. After all, John Elkann brought him to Maranello precisely for this reason and the objective passes through possible discontent triggered or capable of being triggered within the Scuderia following certain choices.
Something is unlikely to happen during the Miami days; or at least it will be announced. But if in Imola, or in Montecarlo, the future Red were to have more precise lines, there wouldn’t be much to be surprised about.
