Ex-Mercedes chief Norbert Haug claims that Ferrari is prone to make blunders as it did during the Monaco Grand Prix 2022.
Ferrari had all the stars aligned to win the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday. They locked up the front row, yet they lost the race to Red Bull. It’s not like they lost on pace, but a poor strategy.
A disappointing series of decisions by Ferrari, which included wrongly pitstopping Charles Leclerc cost them the race. Leclerc was furious to lose a commanding lead to Sergio Perez and even shouted at his race engineer.
However, ex-Mercedes chief Norbert Haug, who played a pivotal role in the return of Mercedes to F1, thinks it’s the history of Ferrari to make such crucial blunders.
“What Ferrari did in Monaco will certainly not go down in motorsport history as a great moment of strategy, but rather as a stroke of genius that was as unnecessary as it was self-manufactured,” Haug told RND.
“From the outside, it seems there is so much pressure internally at Ferrari to make decisions particularly well when perfectly normal decisions would be a much better choice.
“Ferrari certainly tripped themselves up in Monaco, turning a sure win for their title contender Leclerc into a fourth-place finish and giving his rival Max Verstappen a completely unnecessary and, in the worst-case scenario, possibly World Championship-deciding gift.
“Unfortunately, it is part of Ferrari’s history that such blunders happen from time to time and thus torpedo otherwise brilliant results. At the next race, the pressure will not be less in this way.”
Also read: Helmut Marko on how Red Bull is putting Ferrari star under tremendous pressure
Ferrari aims for first win in Baku
It is surprising that ever since Azerbaijan has been on the F1 calendar, Ferrari has never won here. Only Mercedes and Red Bull have managed to seal victory over here.
Even though only two teams have won in the last six years in Baku, no driver has managed to win there twice. And it seems, apart from Perez, the contenders to win this race will also for the first time win a race here.
Whether it would be Leclerc or Carlos Sainz, Ferrari would have to face a tough battle from Red Bull this weekend.
Also read: The Austrian Ferrari legend had to pay huge money to get into Formula 1
