Red Mist: What are the odds?

So there it is. The Ferrari SF-26. Maranello’s 72nd Formula 1 challenger. Pretty, isn’t she? Or not? But what are the chances of this car finally bringing Ferrari a 16th Formula 1 World Drivers Title, its first in 19 years? Or an 18th Constructors' Championship, 18 years later?

Well, about four to one against, if the Scuderia’s success in seasons directly after not winning a race in a given season, are anything to go by. Stats can be fun. A cursory glance of Ferrari’s seasons show that it indeed failed to win in that first 1950 season.

But in 1951 José Froilán González won the Scuderia’s first race and Alberto Ascari twice more. Then Ascari went unbeaten in the races he drove in 1952 and was mighty again in 1953 ,en route to Enzo’s first two Drivers’ titles.

Maranello won at least once a season from there until 1957. Saddled with three year old Lancia DS50 V8 powered 801s, Ferrari endured a second another winless season.

Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins may have only won a race apiece for Ferrari in 1958, but Hawthorn did enough elsewhere to take Ferrari’s third Drivers title.

So there’s one Title the year after a winless season. Tony Brooks won twice more in 1959 and Phil Hill once on 1960 before becoming horse behind the cart champions in 1961. And then they did not win a race in 1962. One win followed in 1963, before John Surtees was a Ferrari Champion in 1964.

1965 was another dot year, proving a bit of a trend to failing to win after a Championship year. Surtees and Ludovico Scarfiotti won in 1966 before winless season number 4 in 1967.

Jacky Ickx won a single race in 1968 and it was barren a fifth time in 1969. They won every year from there until 1973, which proved win-free season six.

Then came the Niki Lauda era with three wins in 1974 and the Championships in 1975 and 1977 with Ferrari on a winning streak until Jody Scheckter took the title in 1979.

1980 proved winless again. They bounced back into the turbo era winning two Constructors' Titles on the trot from there. Tragically Ferrari lost the 1982 Drivers’ title to terrible misfortune. But the trend so far shows Ferrari to be very strong on the second year after not winning in a season.

Then it was dead, with little or no wins until Michael Schumacher and the dream team came along. And for a decade Ferrari was either winning of fighting for World Titles for a decade until Kimi Raikkonen's 2007 Title and another good year after that in 2008 with a Constructors' Title.

Since then it’s been a bit trickier with a revolving door of past Champions and rookies hitting and missing.

That included four more winless years. With Fernando Alonso and Raikkonen in 2014 followed by three wins in 2015 and then a dot 2016 with Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, four wins between them in 2017 and six in 2018.

Charles Leclerc and Vettel then won three in 2019. Not that any of those drivers were not previous champions.

Lockdown was nasty to Ferrari with dot seasons for Leclerc and Vettel, and Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in 2020 and 2021.

Interestingly those two had Ferrari's best season in a while with four wins in 2022, then a single win for Sainz in 2023 and an impressive five-win rout in 2024 before the Lewis Hamilton era ended winless again in 2025.

So what about 2026? Well, going on Ferrari form in years following winless seasons, there’s no guarantee that statistically they will win any races at all.

But there is also a fair chance they will win a few races, and there’s about an eight in one chance Hamilton or Leclerc will actually win the 2026 World Driver’s Championship.

There's a far better chance, closer to three to one, that Ferrari will win the following 2027 World Championship, however.

It seems there have been several cases of that in the past. But hey, why not just go against the odds and win it this year anyway.

Us Tifosi live in hope. So here’s to that one on the eight-to-one stats! Forza Ferrari.