I’m hearing a lot of complaints about Ferrari’s current performance. “Why aren’t they winning?”; “Why are they not bouncing back to fight for title?”….

This got me thinking. Did Michael Schumacher’s tactics ruin Ferrari?

Look at the “main” drivers that joined after Schumacher left, Kimi Raikkonen and Fernand Alonso. Yes, Kimi won the title in 2007, just, but it was still with the same designers and engineering staff Schumacher had. So you can call it a “Schumacher-hangover” title.

The problem is, Schumacher worked so hard to get the team moulded around him and into the dominating machine we came to know between 2000 and 2004. I have to admit he made all those victories look easy.

It wasn’t. He used to sleep in Enzo Ferrari’s old shack room at the Ferrari test track so he could test as early as possible, of course in those day you could test as much as you wanted.

We as TV viewers and fans of F1 never got to see that and I’m pretty sure the other drivers didn’t either.

So, with every driver that signed for Ferrari after Schumacher thought they would be inheriting a winning team and everything would be easy. They didn’t and it won’t.

As I mentioned Kimi only won the championship in 2007 because they had everything already lined up in 2006, the year Schumacher was still their driver and after that it’s all gone a little pear-shaped.

Ferrari fans have come to expect perfection from the team from Maranello and it is a little sad to see the team competing for third or fourth in the constructor’s title.

As I said in a previous blog entry, having two competitive drivers in a competitive team is a recipe for disaster. Yes they will be pushing each other for victories, but there is always that chance that they will bash into each other and the team will end up not getting any points.

Look at Williams in 1986. They had the best car and two of the best drivers at the time, Nigel Mansell and Nelson Piquet, they should have walked that season, they didn’t. The two drivers were fighting so much with each other that they didn’t win the drivers’ title.

Look at McLaren Mercedes in 2005, same situation, two great drivers and the best car and no titles.

So, Ferrari needs to get a driver and mould the entire team around that one driver. Who could it be? Yesterday I said Bruno Senna. The reason being, he is doing a good job in an inferior car. He is still young and he will be a huge marketing victory for Ferrari, “A Senna in a Ferrari”.

I would love to see the return of Robert Kubica. The only problem is, will he be the same driver that we all know and love before he had his accident in rallying? I hope so.

Tags: #Enzo Ferrari, #ferrari, #Maranello