Ferrari saw the golden opportunity in the 2022 technical regulations and started the season on a high. They won two of the opening three races as Red Bull suffered reliability issues.
But the prancing horse soon saw Red Bull swing the entire situation in their favour while Ferrari botched their own campaign.
Meanwhile, Red Bull went on to claim both the drivers’ title and the constructors’ title by winning 17 of the 22 races of the season, 15 of which were claimed by Max Verstappen in a record-breaking season.
Ferrari’s Senior Performance Engineer and Drivers’ Coach, Jock Clear, described the battle of 2022 with Red Bull by comparing the Milton-Keynes-based team with Muhammad Ali.
Clear said that everytime Ferrari thought they have Red Bull on the ropes, Christian Horner’s team came up with a counterpunch like Ali, shocking everyone with ‘where did they get that from?!’
Also Read: Max Verstappen talks about ‘cramp’ which nearly cost him his 2021 World Championship win
Red Bull works on experience of being World Champion
Furthermore, Clear believes that Red Bull’s strength is that they have been quite flexible in their campaign it comes with the experience of being a world champion.
He said that this year has been really helpful in terms of fighting at the front. Ferrari, too, has to get used to fighting like world champions.
Moreover, it is also vital for the Scuderia to learn the best path of development keeping in mind the budget cap.
Ferrari needs better management of budget cap
Halfway through the 2022 championship, Ferrari ran out of its development budget while Red Bull was able to manage it much more efficiently.
Soon-to-be-gone team principal Mattia Binotto had previously said that Ferrari’s road to upgrading the F1-75 was not as clear as Red Bull had with its RB18.
Clear believes that Red Bull found the right balance while Ferrari maybe pushed too quickly with its upgrades and Mercedes did it too late.
Also Read: Nico Rosberg believes it was ‘easy’ for Max Verstappen to beat Lewis Hamilton
