Ferrari: The numbers behind the improvement

You don’t write history with ifs and buts – neither the one with a capital H nor the history of a Formula 1 world championship. But it’s true that if you analyse how the first ten races of the 2011 season have gone and then you divide it up further into two separate halves, the pattern that emerges is the improvement of the Scuderia Ferrari, which is the only one of the top teams to have made progress. The figures tell the tale.

At the end of the Spanish Grand Prix Red Bull had amassed a total of 185 points, more than double the Maranello team’s haul (75) while McLaren (138) was also behind. From Monte Carlo to the Nürburgring the performance of the Austrian-English team has seen a slight drop (-15 points) while the Scuderia has gone up by 42 points and McLaren has undergone the most marked loss (-33). If you take into consideration the performance of the individual drivers you see that Alonso is the driver who has improved his results the most (+28 points) followed by Massa (+14) and by Webber (+5) while there is a downward trend both for Vettel (-20) and for the two McLarens (Hamilton -20, Button -13).

If the 2011 world championship had begun on the streets of the principality of Monaco, the classification would still have Vettel in front (98 points) but it would certainly be much more open: Fernando would be second, just 19 points behind, while Webber would be third with 72 points and Hamilton fourth with 57. Unfortunately this is not the real story and we have to act on that. Starting with a handicap immediately becomes a heavy burden and comebacks are not always possible, above all if there isn’t a little bit of ‘help’ from the opponents. In sport, however, anything can happen: what’s important is to keep heading in this direction, always bearing in mind that the other teams are certainly not sleeping and that they all have the capacity to reverse the trend.

So we are keeping our feet firmly on the ground but there is also the chance to look with an ounce of satisfaction at the fact that the extreme efforts that have been going on in the background have paid off. In addition we can all take it as read that, as Domenicali has said: “In the second half of the year we can hope to enjoy ourselves a bit.”