All indications were that this year’s F1 Championship was decided long ago. However, Ferrari returned the blow with all its might in the last race in Germany, as the Reds from Maranello in Hockenheim showed better form compared to Mercedes. At least in terms of speed. Until the shock of qualifying, Ferrari mastered all the training sessions.
In Sunday's rainy race, Sebastian Vettel, with his march from twentieth place to the final second, also managed to reduce the point gap (both his own and the team's) behind the dominant Mercedes. Because the silver arrows experienced a black day and only thanks to the penalty for the Alfa Romeo team they were not left empty-handed.
Ferrari is still more than 140 points behind Mercedes in the championship, but the speed they had in Germany fills them with optimism. Notwithstanding the fact that many observers attribute this good form of the Ferrari to the ground plan of the track in Hockenheim, which is supposed to fit the SF90 race car.
The last race before the summer break, which will be in Hungary, thus represents a new test. After all, the Hungaroring has a number of slow corners, which are precisely the types of corners that have highlighted - too little vacuum - the disadvantages of the SF90 car this year. But Ferrari is optimistic about this test. “It will be important to see if this race will provide further confirmation that our race car has improved on different types of tracks,” team boss Mattia Binotto said of the race in Hungary.
To this end, they will - unlike in the last race - bring improvements to the Hungaroring. “We’ll be able to rely on the various elements we last installed on the race car, in addition to bringing new aerodynamic improvements,” Binotto predicts.
But Ferrari must now look closely at reliability after the final defeat in the Hockenheim qualifiers. “Of course. We are focusing on the latest reliability issues to ensure that this does not happen again. ” Because reliability is very important at Hungaroring, where high temperatures traditionally prevail. “Hungaroring is a track where cooling is a very important factor. It's hellishly hot there at the time, which is understandably not helpful, ”warns Sebastian Vettel.
