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Ferrari Is Almost Ready To Give Up On Its 2021 F1 Effort

Sorry Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, your car is pretty much only going to get less competitive as the 2021 season drags on, because Scuderia Ferrari says it’s moving “90 to 95 percent” of its focus to developing its 2022 car and the new regulations. It will not risk compromising next year’s car to try and beat McLaren to third in the championship this year.

2020 was not a good year for Ferrari, as it couldn’t do any better than sixth in the constructors’ championship. After it was forced to rein in its illegal 2019 engine, the car was significantly slower. Imagine that. For 2021, however, the Scuderia has managed to find a way to make its engine more powerful, presumably in a legal fashion this time. The SF21 isn’t as hopeless as 2020’s SF1000 had been.

After the first four races of the season, Ferrari trails behind McLaren by just 5 points, and Charles Leclerc is currently in fifth position in the world drivers’ championship. Clearly the team has found the speed needed to compete at the front of the mid pack. But it wouldn’t take much improvement for Alpine or Alpha Tauri to catch them up.

Laurent Mekies, Ferrari F1 sporting director, has said he has committed to fully focusing on next year’s car. “We are pretty much already in full switch, it’s already the case for us. If you want to put a number to it, if you call it 90 percent, 95 percent, whatever you want to call it, but it’s pretty much where we are.”

“This is very clear to us, we are focused on 2022,” Mekies added. “The fact that the field is tight that you may need a few hundredths or a few tenths to switch from sixth to third will not change our strategy, the focus is on next year. We have switched the large majority of our resources to it already. It doesn’t mean that some details will not change on the car from now onwards, as we all do with what we learn at the racetrack. But the focus is on next year, even if the field is tight. For us it is a clear decision.”

Interestingly, McLaren have taken the opposite tack.

Team boss Andreas Seidl commenting at the Spanish Grand Prix, “If you look since the first test this year onwards we simply tried to continuously bring updates to the car, to make continuously steps forward with the performance We’ve also brought upgrades for example to Portimao, we’ve brought updates for the car also here in free practice. And our plan is to still bring further updates also in the coming races.”

He later added, “It’s obviously a very tight battle, especially with Ferrari, and it’s simply important to make sure we keep bringing upgrades to the car in the next races in order to keep this battle of P3 alive.”

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Mekies seems to be totally fine with Ferrari sinking down to 6th in the championship again this year. It is only the third team (after Haas and Williams) to announce they had no more intention of developing the 2021 chassis. There’s no telling what other teams will do between now and then, but if I were Alpine, I’d be working on some mid-season updates right about now. Good luck with your 2022 car, Ferrari, it sounds like you’re going to need it.

Ferrari Is Finally Getting Off Its High Horse And Is Embracing Electric Cars

Ferrari has read the room. The Italian carmaker is finally admitting that electrification is where cars are heading — in its case, more like being dragged kicking and screaming. Nonetheless, Ferrari is now pushing its battery electric car release up by five years, according to a report from Bloomberg.

That means the Prancing Horse will adorn a fully electrified car by 2025, rather than 2030. This is a significant course correction for Ferrari who had been dismissive of EVs in the past. The Bloomberg report calls it reluctance.

I think that assessment is a little generous when you consider the remarks from Ferrari’s previous leadership. The carmaker’s last chief executive officer, Louis Camilleri, all but claimed that its customers didn’t want a fully electric Ferrari. I think that attitude had very much to do with not going against the image Ferrari wanted to project, which under Camilleri was all about a certain lifestyle.

The problem is that attitude relegated EVs to something less urgent and necessary than they really are. It reinforced the notion that the wealthy are above any crises we collectively face. As if the electrification of the auto industry is beneath supercar buyers.

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It’s quite a pretentious notion and I’m happy that Ferrari’s current chairman, John Elkann, has addressed the importance of getting an all-electric Ferrari on the road sooner. Elkann spoke to Ferrari’s EV plans on an investor call during Ferrari’s annual general meeting, from the Bloomberg report.

Besides sharing the new projections for the electric Ferrari, Elkann also elaborated on why the company is embracing EVs:

We are continuing to execute our electrification strategy in a highly disciplined way.

…

Our interpretation and application of these technologies both in motorsport and in road cars is a huge opportunity to bring the uniqueness and passion of Ferrari to new generations.

That’s a more sensible approach, and possibly a more lucrative one, too. New generations being the giveaway. The Camilleri approach feels silly because it tethers the company to an aging demographic.

Just think of storied companies and their reluctance to change for the sake of what, brand integrity? OK, Camilleri. Go ahead and ask Harley-Davidson what brand integrity is worth. Even Harley has had to course correct, and it put itself on the path to electrification with the LiveWire.

And it’s not like Ferrari hasn’t done anything at all in this arena. Though, the effort Ferrari has put into electrification has yielded only the SF90 Stradale so far, which feels like a tepid entry into the EV segment with it’s whopping eight mile electric range. But it is a Ferrari, for what that’s worth.

So, let’s see more, Ferrari, but stick to red and yellow; I actually do mean that one. Whatever BEV Ferrari debuts in 2025, I hope it puts zero EV accents on the car.

Train Crashes Into Houston Truck Carrying Ferrari SF90 Stradale, Other Exotics

Let’s gather ‘round and pour one out for the semi full of exotics that lost its life on April 1, 2021 in Houston, Texas. I wish it was an April Fool’s Joke. The hauler, carrying a Ferrari SF90 Stradale and a 488 Spyder, was unable to cross a set of railroad tracks in time before it was absolutely creamed by the oncoming train.

Everyone walked away fine without any fatalities or injuries, but the same can’t be said for the cars in the back of the hauler.

Moe Prince, a local who witnessed the crash, noted that the “the SF90 was fucked up… And I believe a Bentley. It was one of the cars where train struck it right in the middle. They didn’t pull it out,” as per Road & Track.

The investigation is still ongoing, but it appeared that the semi attempted to cross the train tracks and got stuck doing so, local paper The Leader reports. Despite the slow moving freight train, there wasn’t enough time to alert railroad officials to get them to slow it to a stop. The impact jackknifed the rig and pushed it a short distance from the intersection before coming to a halt, but it was enough to do the damage.

Road & Track reported that there were, among other cars, a dark-colored SF90 Stradale, a yellow 488 Spyder, a vintage white Porsche 911, and possibly a Bentley. The full contents of the truck, though, aren’t known. It only seems like the Stradale and the Bentley took the brunt of the hit, since those were likely the two vehicles closest to the point of impact.

Prince told Road & Track that it seemed the driver was unfamiliar with the area, which is what caused the accident. Whatever the case may be, it’s going to be a costly one—an SF90 Stradale alone clocks in at $625,000.