Ferrari’s 2020 Formula 1 season went from bad to worse when Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel collided on the opening lap of the Styrian Grand Prix, resulting in both retiring from the race.
While Leclerc took the blame for the incident, apologising to Vettel and for putting “the thoughts of the team in the bin”, the incident left plenty for Ferrari to consider ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Team boss Mattia Binotto called it “the worst conclusion on a very bad weekend from us”, but he called for Ferrari to “work united” rather than focus on playing the blame game.
Here are the verdicts from our writers on a nightmare day for Ferrari, and what’s next for the team from here.
More trouble to come
Scott Mitchell
If we thought the Saturday thunderstorms were bad, it’s absolutely pouring down on Mattia Binotto and Ferrari at the moment.
There’s no argument over who is to blame. It’s Leclerc, and obviously he knows that. The good thing for Ferrari is if Leclerc ever finds himself in the same position he can be trusted not to repeat his foolish misjudgement, because he doesn’t tend to make the same error twice.
LECLERC: "I apologised. Excuses are not enough at times like this. I'm disappointed in myself and let the team down.
"I am sorry even though it’s not enough. We don’t need that, the team doesn’t need that and I've put all the plans of the team in the bin."#AustrianGP 🇦🇹 #F1 pic.twitter.com/z2YNTZNGer
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 12, 2020
The bad news for Ferrari is Leclerc might well find himself in that position again because the team’s in deep trouble.
Its upgrades were deemed unworthy after a wet qualifying but a race would have been incredibly valuable to get a better correlation in representative conditions. Leclerc’s squandered that chance.
I still think it’s too early for any heads to roll, but maybe that’s not going to stop Ferrari’s top brass demanding a human sacrifice.
Because a team and its boss already under a glaring spotlight have had the brightness cranked up even more.
Time to prevent a spiral
Edd Straw
The early stages of the season are all about damage limitation for Ferrari, so the last thing it needed was its cars inflicting damage on each other.
Leclerc put his car into a very high-risk place and a clash was inevitable once committed, but at least he’s immediately taken the blame and said Vettel wasn’t to blame, which will calm some of the fallout. So credit to him for doing what he can to prevent even more damage.
But it is essential that both drivers do what they can to maximise their points. Vettel had an incident of his making at that corner last week and Leclerc has cost the team big-time today. This is a time for team to knuckle down, hang together and salvage what it can while it tries to tackle the weakness of its car.
At a time when it’s still learning about the car and the effectiveness of its initial upgrades, losing a potential two race distances to an incident like this is unacceptable.
When things go wrong at Maranello, they have a habit of spiralling out of control. It’s essential this race doesn’t contribute to Ferrari falling into this trap and that the focus remains razor-sharp on understanding and improving a car that has to serve it not just this year, but next year.
Show some respect
Gary Anderson
When the performance of your car means that you are caught up in the midfield battles, you have to expect to be involved in a bit of argy-bargy but the last thing you expect or need is that it’s with your team-mate.
In a situation like this, which I personally have been involved in quite a few times, you have to treat both drivers as equally responsible. They have to respect each other, otherwise you have to have a definitive number one and number two and the number two must accept that that is the situation.
However, Ferrari’s main problem comes from the performance of the car and I don’t think any of the developments I have seen this weekend will do anything whatsoever to improve that.
Ferrari needs to start digging a bit deeper to identify where its problems are and not just randomly throw parts at an already inferior aerodynamic specification.
STRONG LEADERSHIP REQUIRED
Mark Hughes
Yet another clash between the Ferrari drivers was actually just a bit of first lap clumsiness – in this case from Leclerc. It was far too busy a situation already to try taking advantage. Not a big deal in a racing sense – but a massive deal internally for the under-the-cosh Scuderia.
Had it been Vettel at fault it might have actually been more awkward, given the dymamic of Leclerc being the long-term team leader, Vettel the soon-to-depart champion.
Leclerc let the team down on this occasion but it can be argued that Ferrari has let its drivers down with the car it has provided them. Besides, this has come only seven days after Leclerc massively flattered the car with his second place last week.
But is there a question of discipline to be established by Mattia Binotto here? He already has had to publicly admonish Leclerc for breaking the COVID bubble protocols in between races.
It’s an absolute no-no for a team’s two cars to collide, and a particular nightmare when it is already under the microscope because of the competitive failings of its car. It’s now happened twice in the last four races.
Binotto needs to be both strong and inspiring in this nasty phase of the team’s fortunes. Which is essentially a run-on from how it chose to interpret the fuel flow regulations last season.
Vettel played a part
Glenn Freeman
There’s no question is was a foolish, rookie error from Leclerc. Vettel’s said it, and Leclerc has held his hands up.
But while Vettel could understandably expect his team-mate wouldn’t throw his nose into a gap that was likely to close, it’s always a risk to open the door in the way he did.
Vettel was trying to widen his approach to Turn 3 to get a better exit in the pack. But the nature of racing in the midfield is that you have to think a little more about who is around you.
Leclerc wouldn’t have needed to be much closer on the approach to the corner to make a legitimate passing attempt on Vettel based on the size of the gap Vettel opened just before he turned in.
Ultimately, both were guilty of the sort of behaviour you wouldn’t see from drivers more familiar with starting races buried in the pack. But Leclerc’s offence was much worse.
