Ferrari have been almost ever-present at the sharp end of F1 but their recent woes have been brought to light by a statistic involving Max Verstappen.
The Dutchman serenely strolled to victory in the first race of the 2023 Formula 1 season, winning by 10 seconds over his Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez in the Bahrain Grand Prix.
That victory took Verstappen to a whopping 26 F1 race wins in the past two years while Ferrari, in the last 10 years (since 2013), have only managed 23.
For much of that period, they struggled with not having the quickest car on the track and a dominant force leading the way.
But that statistic does include the end of Michael Schumacher’s reign as the best in the business and Kimi Raikkonen’s championship year.
Even Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel couldn’t get the prancing horse back to the top and now Charles Leclerc is finding out the pain.
Reason to be optimistic
There is no getting around the struggles Ferrari have had in the past decade in turning a fast car into a winning one but things could be a lot worse.
They are still the second-fastest car in F1 right now having locked out the second row behind the two Red Bulls in Bahrain.
Before Leclerc’s engine gave way in the closing stages of the race, he was a very comfortable third and would have denied Alonso a surprise podium in the Aston Martin.
| Year | Ferrari wins |
|---|---|
| 2013 | 2 |
| 2014 | 0 |
| 2015 | 3 |
| 2016 | 0 |
| 2017 | 5 |
| 2018 | 6 |
| 2019 | 3 |
| 2020 | 0 |
| 2021 | 0 |
| 2022 | 4 |
There are still 22 races to go and if Aston Martin could feasibly catch Red Bull in that time then surely the sport’s oldest team could do the same.
