Damon Hill Reflects on Ferrari’s Lamentable Season as the Italian Giants Inch Closer to Equalling Their Longest Trophy Drought: “They Didn’t Provide a Challenge to Max”

Ferrari’s strong start in 2022 ignited hope in their fans that their team had finally arrived. It seemed after years of suffering at the hands of Mercedes and Red Bull, the Prancing Horse was ready to regain its glory. But with some weak performances and questionable race strategies, they have missed the opportunity and fell down the pecking order. Former Formula 1 Champion Damon Hill provided a reality check for the Tifosi.

Max Verstappen’s World Drivers’ Championship (WDC) win in Japan marked one of the greatest comebacks in the history of Formula 1. The Dutchman was, at one point in the season, 46 points behind Charles Leclerc. Ever since then, Red Bull worked hard in the garage and tackled the problem of the car being overweight and delivered a car with blistering straight-line speed.

Damon Hill on Ferrari’s “lamentable” season

When Max Verstappen DNF’d twice and Mercedes had little impact, Ferrari dominated with a quick car. With the start of the new car regulations, it looked to be the season that would mark Leclerc’s first WDC win. But ever since then it has looked like Ferrari has shot themselves in the foot. The car has reliability issues and over time, has failed to challenge Red Bull.

Reflecting on the Prancing Horse’s season, Damon Hill said, “It was a lamentable at times performance from them because they showed so much promise at the beginning and between the team’s strategy and a few driver errors and basically lacking the ability to move forward with that car, they didn’t provide a challenge to Max [Verstappen].”

It was initially Michael Schumacher who ended the longest title drought of Ferrari which was 21 years. Do you think Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc is inching towards the same feat?

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As the season progressed, Charles Leclerc cemented his position in the 2nd in drivers’ standings. However, with a win at the Singapore GP and Leclerc being handed a time penalty in Japan, Sergio Perez has claimed the 2nd spot from the Monegasque.

Reflecting on the single-point difference between the two, Hill continued, “It’s still close between Sergio [Perez] and Charles in the championship, so if you took Max out of the equation, you could say that’s the difference, but Max was 20-seconds ahead of Charles and Sergio in Japan, in the wet after 20 laps.”

Charles Leclerc on how to stop Max Verstappen and Red Bull’s juggernaut next season

Charles Leclerc will now focus on retaking the 2nd position from Perez with 4 more races to go in the season. However, he has the next year on his mind already.

Leclerc recently revealed that it is not the performance that is lacking in the car. He felt that if Ferrari were to win a title next season, they will have to focus on putting everything together on Sundays.

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Ferrari is going through a challenging phase in Formula 1. The last time they won the Constructors’ trophy was in 2008. The season when Lewis Hamilton won his first of 7 driver’s championships. Seems longer when provided with that context, doesn’t it?