Ferrari: Why Being Headless Chickens isn’t a Great Idea After all

Not many would want to see a team like Ferrari having a nightmare time where it comes to managing its drivers. While there already is a battle to be won, the fastest cars to be beaten and those attempting to usurp it on the track be prevented from doing so, one wonders, who’s got the time to manage an intra-team battle?

But where it comes to managing both Vettel and Leclerc, it appears that the team is yet to come to a decision as to which driver is to be supported and pushed toward the victory march, if at all there is one?

Yet again in Spain, one got to see some sort of confusion from the Scuderia stable. Out in the 66-lap contest, it seemed, the troubles for Scuderia ran deeper than they appeared. One wonders, in a season where nothing is going right for them, why can’t there be a single-minded strategy, up to terms with the unflappable frontrunners on the grid- Mercedes?

While on the one hand, there was utter chaos, with Leclerc not immediately allowed to go past Vettel despite being quicker, it also appeared, that both drivers were communicated to being on strategies that they weren’t really on, or so it seemed?

Wondering how? Here’s some idea.

For instance, at the time where Vettel came really close to Leclerc, having emerged behind post his first pit, the Monegasque driver was told that both were on the same strategy. Yet, when Vettel spoke to the team, he was informed that both Ferrari drivers were on a different strategy.

What on earth was going on? Where did it go wrong for the Scuderia stable, all wondered?

Additionally, where Martin Brundle and David Croft were concerned, the greatest indecision from Scuderia was the fact that from the onset of Lap 8 to 12, the team didn’t decide on whether to let Leclerc through past Vettel or not. For should that have happened, who knows, Leclerc would’ve surely got more time on his hands to catch Verstappen, and then the two Mercedes cars.

This was both strange and surprising in the sense that the team had already faced a similar situation earlier on at Bahrain and then, also at China, where Leclerc gathered another P5, something he managed at Spain as well.

And during all this time where Ferrari failed to let the quicker driver through, Mercedes chipped away comfortably, arguably realizing Ferrari were perhaps doing what seems to come naturally to them: being caught up in two minds.

With 5 races done and 16 more to come, Ferrari, it’s not hard not note aren’t any closer to Mercedes. To that end, should the Mattia Binotto-team continue to behave like headless chickens, as if they aren’t any, having doused the anticipation of their fans, race after another in a season that’s either about missed one wonders, what lies ahead?

Should they feel lucky that Vettel, aided (to a great extent) by the somewhat late stops by the likes of the Haas drivers was able to claw his way back up into fourth, having missed out right at the start or should they feel that something seems amiss? Thankfully, one doesn’t have to take a call on that being the fan of this great sport.