Red Mist: One step forward, two steps back again for Ferrari

While we wait with bated breath for episode one of that fabled new Ferrari upgrade next week, let’s ponder the marvels of Maranello in Miami. The sprint went well enough. Lewis Hamilton wrested success from the jaws of failure with a well-executed stop at just the right time, for once. Charles Leclerc? Well, what can we say. Shit happens.

Sunday dawned promising after what seemed a tactical breakthrough the day before. Alas.

“Lewis must understand that when I make a decision, I’m deciding for Ferrari,” capo Vasseur snapped after the race. “I don’t have 30 minutes to look at the data and so on. We must decide who is the fastest on track, if it’s coming from the DRS or not. I’m perhaps a bit slow, but it took me one lap or one and a half laps to make a decision.”

Really, Fred?

Surely you also understand that those yellows like it best when their temperature and conditions are consistent? How many times have we seen someone storm into another car’s wake on fresh yellows and then go nowhere from there?

Surely you understood that Lewis pace was dependent on him keeping that yellow kettle boiling, so to speak? Never mind that, once past, Charles could have tucked in behind and, with a little luck, both would have caught and - dream on - passed Kimi Antonelli's Merc?

But no. “When you’re behind, you have the feeling that you have to swap in the next corner, and when you’re in front, it’s the DRS effect,” Fred elaborated. “I think it was the reverse situation 10 laps later.” Wake up, buddy. Your dithering is all that made us look like the clowns those memes portray us as—all over again.

It was entertaining, at least, in a dull part of the race. “Honestly, I never felt it was disrespectful,” Lewis argued about his little Monty Python episode. “I’m not going to apologise for being a fighter, or for still wanting it.”

But this is the real concern...

We’re splitting hairs here. The real concern is the minute gap to the McLarens up front. Worse still, Vasseur fails to mention the orange cars when talking up his imminent upgrade. “I think we’ll have a car back in the fight with Mercedes, the Bulls.”

Hamilton was just as cautious with his Imola outlook. “We’ll try something different next race,” he uttered. “We’ll keep working on our processes and I look forward to maybe I can fight for a podium. That would be nice.”

Which leaves Red Mist wondering: is Ferrari really satisfied with P3 and P4? It’s a tragic day if it is…