Leo Turini: Ferrari’s glass is still half empty

Italian journalist Leo Turini, commenting on the results of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, argues that it is too early for Ferrari fans to rejoice, as their favorite team is still a long way from victories.

I’m going to borrow a quote from Neil Armstrong, who was my childhood hero, but I’ll change his words a bit.

This is a small step. But before that gigantic leap, which humanity has been waiting for so many years from Ferrari, is still a long way off. Very far.

Two poles and the first podium of the season is the maximum that Charles Leclerc could achieve for his team in Baku. We can say that this man knows how to achieve his goal despite the circumstances, so I want Maranello to at least offer him a contract extension.

But Charles is right: the Ferrari glass is half empty. In reality, Red Bull’s backlog is such that they simply give up. We already saw this in the course of Saturday’s sprint: although Leclerc started from pole, the chances of stopping the attacks of Verstappen and Perez were equal to zero.

I’m ready to repeat what I’ve already said a million times. In short, I honestly don’t understand why Ferrari still fails to find the right balance between the human and financial resources available to the team.

Undoubtedly, Frederic Vasseur is now solving exactly this problem and organizational reforms are already underway. But it’s not just about inviting the right specialists to the Scuderia. It seems to me that in Maranello the ideology should change, the team should be more daring in applying risky technical solutions if necessary.

Carlos Sainz was alone on the sidelines this weekend. By the way, so was George Russell, except maybe it was he who put in the best lap of the race.

When we talk about Red Bull Racing, unfortunately this team is now performing in its own category. Circumstances held Verstappen back, and Perez successfully exploited this. But personally I do not believe that a conflict could flare up between the partners of this team in the style of confrontation between Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost at McLaren.

PS This weekend I remember Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger.