Red Mist: Is the right Scuderia running Ferrari in Formula 1?

One has to wonder what’s going down at Ferrari. Except for Lewis Hamilton’s shock sprint race win in off pole position in China and one other podium for Charles Leclerc along the way, the Formula 1 team seems to have lost the plot.

At the same time, however, AF Corse Ferrari seems unable to put a foot wrong in the World Endurance Championship. The red and yellow cars quite literally have the combined might of Toyota, Porsche, BMW, Cadillac, Alpine Renault, Peugeot and Aston Martin on their knees in a crushing performance so far.

Now the Ferrari 499Ps head for Le Mans looking for a hat trick off a hat trick of wins in the three races of this 2025 season.

Ferrari is Formula 1, they say. Steeped in legend, it’s the only team that’s been there all the way since the second-ever Grand Prix at Monaco 75 years ago next week. Enzo Ferrari was something of a journeyman driver, with sporadic success. Until he started his own team at the end of 1929. The rest is, well, history…

Enzo built his first Ferrari, a 166 sportscar in 1947. The first supercharged 1500 cc V12 single seater 125 followed the next year, of which four first raced in F1 at Monaco 1950. In the 75 years since, Ferrari only won sixteen F1 Constructors, and fifteen World Drivers championships. With Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Mike Hawthorn, Phil Hill, John Surtees, Niki Lauda, Jody Scheckter, Michael Schumacher and Kimi Räikkönen.

Kimi last won the title in 2007. Eighteen years ago, to be precise. Fast approaching Maranello’s spectacular 21 year winless record between Scheckter in ‘79 and Schumacher in 2000. In spite of superstar signings Fernando Alonso, Sebastian Vettel, and now Hamilton, et al. It was no different in the hiatus between Scheckter and Schumacher with the very well proven likes of Prost, Mansell and other greats failing to make the Ferrari bacon.

No relation to Enzo, Amato Ferrari was also a journeyman driver in European Formula 3. He later defected to the British and Italian Touring Car championships. Amato scored the occasional podium over his racing decade in the late ‘80s and early 1990s. He hung up his helmet in ‘95 to concentrate on managing his Italian Superturismo team until that series ended in 1999.

Amato Ferrari then launched his GT team, AF Corse and landed a development deal to run the Maserati Trofeo Cup one-make series. That led to developing the racing version of the Ferrari Enzo spinoff Maserati MC12 for the FIA GT Championship. The team won a few races before AF Corse returned to running the Maserati Trofeo Cup in ’05.

AF Corse then went to the FIA GT Championship to run a Ferrari F430 in 2006, winning several races including the Spa 24 Hour en route to taking the title, before repeating the feat in dominant style in 2007. The team joined the Le Mans Series in 2010, stepped up to the Ferrari 458 in ‘2011 and spread its wings to the Usas it grew to an international Ferrari GT3 racing force in the following decade.

In 2023, Scuderia Ferrari appointed AF Corse to run its new 499P hypercar in the FIA World Endurance Championship. Amato Ferrari’s team promptly won the centenary Le Mans 24 hour. On its first attempt in Ferrari's first Le Mans top class entry in 50 years in ’23 and repeated the act in 2024.

2025 has started with a dominant hat trick of World Endurance Championship AF Corse victories off pole position. The team continues to succeed in spite of a mounting Balance of Performance deficit as AF Corse heads to Le Mans looking for a hat trick there in precisely a month from now.

All of which leads one to scratch one’s head at why, precisely, Ferrari continues to struggle as it chases another spectacular record of championship less years in Formula 1? Yet at the same time, its new world sportscar racing team has come, seen and conquered to utterly dominate against plausible tougher competition at Le Mans and in the WEC.

If Enzo was around, would he accept the pathetic performance in Formula 1? The eternal promise of ‘we’ll fix it with the next upgrade?’ The heaven’s waiting room of has-been drivers, pathetic strategy and piss-poor decisions even a hacker karting dad would make better?

Nope. Enzo would have fired all their useless asses and brought his namesake Amato Ferrari in to fix his Formula 1 issues. Hopefully with enough time left to prevent that dreadful 21-year record from actually being broken.

The chances of that happening with this woke bunch is however zero. So we head to Imola banking on that next upgrade. As if McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes won’t bring their own. As we dream on about Formula 1 memories more than a dog’s life ago. And stare braking a horrible record in the face. See you at Le Mans!