Ferrari has been on a championship drought for over 15 years now, with many talented drivers joining the fray, unable to achieve their big dream. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are the recent warriors for the historical team, giving their best and trying to get Ferrari back to its earlier glory.
While the team had an explosive start to 2022, it faded away into the shadow of Max Verstappen and Red Bull. The 2023 season was, in fact, pretty bad for Ferrari, with only a single win so far and numerous missed chances.
John Elkann Points to Mindset for Ferrari’s Championship Struggles
Even though the Scarlet team has been unable to win for the past few years, its not like Ferrari didn’t have a championship-winning car or a championship-winning driver. The 2022 season was an example of one instance where the Italian team had the fastest car on the grid. Sebastian Vettel, who had joined in 2015 after a spree of four championships, was unable to win with Ferrari either.
Chairman John Elkann was being interviewed about his team’s conditions and he didn’t hold back from explaining the failures of his team. One of the main reasons he stated behind Ferrari’s continued failure was their wrong mindset, which didn’t have accountability and somehow embraced a blame culture.
“Accountability is that you own your responsibility and somehow a blame culture deflects that. So it’s not about blaming, it’s about being responsible. And that was a major cultural difference that we had.”
“So focus definitely is an area where if it is applied, but then you need a culture that is able to use that focus in a way that pushes full responsibility and accountability and ultimately a no-blame culture is a prerequisite of it.”
Leclerc dismisses significance of finishing in fourth
After the exciting season Charles Leclerc had in 2022, fighting for the championship during the early stages, Leclerc’s current season regressed into a much worse condition. Even though Ferrari is battling for second in the driver’s championship, Charles Leclerc is currently contesting for 4th in the driver’s standings with many poles but no wins.
Charles however, wants to prioritize the team and he couldn’t care less about his individual results. He claimed in an interview, “Honestly, I would really like the team to be second at the end of this weekend. We’ve had a tough season and everybody deserves it. They’ve worked like crazy in order to bring the upgrades earlier and it will deserve to be in second place at the end of the year, so we’ll do absolutely everything for that.”
“In the drivers’, honestly, I don’t have too much hope of finishing fourth. If this happens, then good. If not, I don’t really mind. I just want to win that Championship as soon as possible.”
Do you think the Ferrari chairman is going to bring another huge change to the team so that they have a better shot at the championship? Tell us in the comments section.
