Ferrari F1 Reveals Its Tunnel Vision Focus on 2022 Despite McLaren Challenge

Lost amongst the major headlines and bylines of 2021 was the impressive recovery Ferrari F1 made in 2021. After an abysmal season in 2020, Ferrari finished third in the drivers’ standings this season after a hard-fought battle with McLaren spread over the season.

Despite that, their tunnel vision towards developing their 2022 car didn’t change.

This was recently confirmed by Sporting Director Laurent Mekies in a recent media interaction. Mekies described how they never thought of paying more than normal attention required to the SF21 despite the McLaren challenge.

“We had chosen to make zero compromise for 2022,” he said.

Mekies said that the decision to focus on 2022 was taken quite early on, “We were hoping at the time, because we are quite distant from McLaren, which is early on in the season, we were hoping that we would be able to fight eventually for the third place.”

“The only development we had in the second half of the year was the hybrid, which again is something we’ll use for next year.”

PU upgrade wasn’t a ‘game changer’ for Ferrari

Many consider the engine upgrade after Monza to be the turning point in Ferrari vs. McLaren. Since that point, the Italian team never looked back in their battle as McLaren tried catching up but never could.

Yet Laurent Mekies said, “nothing that could you say was a game changer”. He admits that in retrospect, the tiny little margins of a few hundredths put them ahead of their rivals.

He explained, “I think because the field is so [tight] we felt the effect it gave us in the second part of the season, or in the third part of the season, was more significant.”

“That small help in that in the end also helped us to better exploit some of the potential of the car.”

As things are shaping up for the 2022 season, and as we all heard throughout the 2021 season, Ferrari showing up at top of the table seems to be more of a reality now and less of a plan.

And when you factor in the two drivers they have, the chances of the Prancing Horse becoming a championship contender again are very high.

Also Read: Former Ferrari Engineer Has Set Goals for the Team in 2022 After Showing Progress in 2021