Christian Horner has claimed that Ferrari need to focus more on being a race team than an Italian team if they are to end their wait for a World Championship. The Scuderia currently occupy P3 in the standings heading into the final two races of the season.
Ferrari head into the upcoming races in Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi with a 20-point deficit to close on rivals Mercedes in the battle for second place in the Constructors’ Championship, but as has so often been the case of late, their own reliability issues have held them back of late.
Mercedes endured a dismal weekend in Interlagos but Ferrari was barely able to capitalise on their struggles as a hydraulics problem caused Charles Leclerc to spin into the barriers and out of the race on the formation lap. The Monegasque driver was set to start on the front row of the grid.
Discussing the state of affairs at Ferrari, he told the Eff Won with DRS podcast: “I think the biggest problem for Ferrari is that it’s a national team. It needs to get back to being a race team.
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“It’s an Italian institution and there’s probably too many people at the top end. Everybody has an input and has a say. From the outside looking in, one of our strengths is that we move quickly, we make decisions and we stick to them.
“And if we make the wrong decision, we change the decision. I think, for Ferrari, the newspapers have such an influence on what happens there. So it’s a lot of pressure, being at Ferrari.”
The notion of Ferrari and pressure is certainly true. In 2022 the Scuderia got off to a lightning-fast start, kicking off the season with a one-two finish in Bahrain and capitalising on reliability issues for Verstappen to help Leclerc open up a significant championship lead.
Unfortunately, after a promising start to the season, things began to unravel with Verstappen clawing his way back to the top of the championship standings thanks to a combination of Ferrari’s strategy and reliability issues.
Despite the campaign kicking off with dominance from Ferrari, any hope of a title battle had been extinguished after the summer break with Verstappen going on to finish 146 points clear of second-placed Leclerc in the standings.
