Ferrari on the attack. Mocking Mercedes is possible

The situation is completely similar to the one we had on the evening of March 6th. It was Bahrain, the first GP of the season had just ended, Charles Leclerc, who retired, probably didn’t draw any particular predictions from the episode: they would have turned out to be right, but he is too optimistic for things like that. Carlos Sainz had finished just below the podium, fourth, just ahead of Lewis Hamilton, with his partner, George Russell, 7th. Total: Mercedes 16 points, Ferrari 12. More than nine months have passed, 20 races, 6 Sprints, hundreds of points, between Red Bull, then as now impregnable, and the two contenders there is no longer Aston Martin, gradually fading away, the rest is identical: Mercedes 392, Ferrari 388. Four points at the beginning of March, four points at the end of November. In a sprint that would be fantastic without the Red Bulls and which is instead exciting in its own way, but still a follow-up. Although certainly as uncertain as ever, and as we would not have imagined, given that those 4 points are the smallest gap to which Ferrari, always in pursuit, managed to contain Mercedes. A deficit that already after Melbourne, race 3 of the season, was 30 points and which had reached its maximum, 56 points, around the holidays, in Budapest. Then it dropped, but never below the 20 points that the silver arrows had over the red ones before the start in Las Vegas. Where despite the grotesque penalty inflicted on Sainz the unimaginable happened. An anonymous Mercedes forced their team to 7th (Hamilton) and 8th place (Russell) which compared to Leclerc’s 2nd and Carlos’s 6th led to -4 from which we start again for the last time of the season in Abu Dhabi.

regrets

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So with some regrets and even more recriminations: without that 10 place relegation on the grid, Carlos would never have finished lower than fourth, even if he were tight and with the worst pessimism: that is, he would have had 4 points more. A cancellation that is useless to think about. But that keeps the internal struggle between him and Charles open: in the sprint we are 200-188. That counts too, of course: we’ll talk about it all winter. But now the comeback in the Constructors’ ranks is more important. Because now more than ever it gives hope of having the perfect times that Marino Basso set in front of Franco Bitossi at the finish line of the 1972 World Cycling Championship. And even more so because between 2nd and 3rd place there are between 7 and 10. millions.