(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ferrari could experience an unwanted anniversary in 2027. If the driver title in Formula 1 does not materialize again this season, it will be exactly 20 years next year since Kimi Räikkönen last brought the world championship trophy to Maranello in 2007.
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Expert Ralf Schumacher says he is not surprised “why it doesn’t work now and why it worked back then” at Scuderia Ferrari. Specifically, he refers in the podcast Backstage Boxengasse mainly to the time when his brother Michael drove for Ferrari.
When Schumacher switched from Benetton to Ferrari in 1996 as the reigning world champion, it was initially also “very, very difficult,” recalls brother Ralf. It was only in the 2000 season, “Schumi’s” fifth year in Maranello, that they became world champions for the first time.
Schumacher explains that the team around his brother, then team principal Jean Todt and technical director Ross Brawn, always “pulled together” even in the difficult early years. He currently misses exactly this factor at Ferrari.
The expert explains that if you look nowadays “at how the drivers – especially on the track – interact with each other and then also off the track towards the team, you shouldn’t be surprised. This is not a unit; they are fighting against each other.”
“They insult each other over the radio, then there are accusations after the race,” says the six-time Grand Prix winner after Ferrari’s home race in Monza last weekend, which was quite a flop for the Scuderia.
Schumacher: “Such accusations never happened”
The drama started right at the start when Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton came too close at the exit of the chicane and the Brit had to go into the gravel trap. Afterwards, he complained over the radio that his teammate had pushed him off.
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After the race, he went further and also criticized the team because there were no “clear rules in the duel” between the drivers. “At Mercedes, we had written rules for that. […] But here, there are no such rules,” said Hamilton.
According to Schumacher, there was never such internal unrest at Ferrari 30 years ago. “Those days were not easy either. But such accusations never happened. It was always a professional approach. And if anything had to be clarified, it was done internally,” says the expert.
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“For us, it is entertaining,” he says, “but I think that is the biggest problem Ferrari has at the moment, that there is absolutely no cohesion.” To make matters worse, after the Monza failure, there is now “really, really pressure on the boiler.”
Hamilton finished Ferrari’s home race in P6, Leclerc retired early after an accident. Schumacher now also sees team principal Frederic Vasseur under pressure because: “Fred Vasseur took over the team, probably got everything he wanted.”
The Frenchman now has “the people in the positions he wanted,” believes Schumacher and explains: “Everything was given to fully attack with the new regulations. And they can do it in between, but not regularly. And that is not good enough.”
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