[NeilP]

Lots of speculation as to why the performance of Ferrari has declined in recent races. Most of it centers around a second sensor being fitted by the FIA to monitor what nobody truly knows. I know nothing about that but this next item by the the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera I think is very interesting. I know opinions on this board are that Arrivabene has done a good job and I agree but I rather suspect changes are coming;

An editorial in Corriere della Sera, an Italian newspaper, links Ferrari's performance drop with the death in July of Sergio Marchionne.

Correspondent Daniele Sparisci said the former president was the "custodian of internal balance", and in the absence of that, Ferrari has split into two warring factions.

On one side, reportedly, is team boss Maurizio Arrivabene, and on the other is Mattia Binotto, who is regarded as second in line for the throne.

"It is said that relations between them is at a historic low," said Sparisci.

[forzaferrari]

I would be very surprised if we do not see Binotto take the reigns sooner rather than later (although as I said previously I think Arrivabene has done a stirling job)....remember last year disasters following Singapore (crash) and Malaysia (reliability) there was rumours Sergio was contemplating giving Binotto the Directorship?

[Monster Hesh]

Does a civil war between management have an impact on a cars performance? Maybe on team operations (but even then of a team that size?) but not the performance characteristics of a car, and especially not in a two month time scale.

Yes, Ferrari have made those operational errors and not just since the passing of Serg, all year there are cases, just like any other team. Ferrari seem structurally sound, it's suicidal for track side personal to be affected so badly by tiff at the top.

[Jody Barton]

I'm with Monster Hesh, a death of a senior executive, or internal management struggle do not affect a cars straight line speed. Or more specifically its acceleration characteristics. It is an entirely preposterous assertion. You could say a management struggle might cause some changes in funding or development focus, or even organisational priorities, and thus have a potential effect on further development of the car, but Ferrari's rate of aero development and changes to other parts of the car have been phenomenal at the last five races, and so t me this indicates that whatever the machinations have been behind the scenes it has not affected Ferrari's rate of development at least.

So what are the possibilities in terms of the turn around in fortunes for the various teams?

1) Mercedes have out developed Ferrari and made gains.
A) Yeah, Mercedes have made great strides no question, in particular around tyre management and traction out of slower corners. They have also appeared to make changes in the deployment of ERS in the engine mapping from Russia. However, this doesn't explain the size of the gap we now see in performance, and nor does it affect how Ferrari's car is performing, which to me seems the key question. Yeah, we're seeing Mercedes perform better, but we're also witnessing Ferrari performing worse than they previously were.

2) Ferrari have taken a step backwards with their development of their car.
A) Yeah, maybe. I certainly identified under rotation, or poor rotation in Russia, or poor to where they were relatively earlier on in the season. Their car's front and rear end seemed not to be working together at all, which is bizarre given how good their aero efficiency and package had been up until Russia. It could of course being track specific, and they could have just struggled to find the balance within their car. However, we had started to see higher tyre degradation on the Ferrari since Austria, but it was most noticeable in Germany and Monza. So could Ferrari have taken a step backwards? Yes. Not every development brought to a car in F1 works, sometimes they make things worse. So yeah, some lost performance can be explained by poor car development, but what about the loss in Ferrari engine performance across all Ferrari powered cars? No.

3) A combination of points 1 and 2 have led to the performance gap.
A) Yes sure, it's plausible. If one team Mercedes gets its development right and finds a few tenths, and the other team, Ferrari, gets their development wrong and loses a few tenths you can end up with a big form swing. The question then becomes is this what we are seeing? Maybe. I certainly can't rule it out, but the aero philosophy Ferrari adopted in Spa seemed phenomenal to me, and their development is a continuation of that philosophy, so how did it suddenly go so badly wrong? Plus, how does that affect engine characteristics like acceleration and top end speed? Extra drag could affect both, but to this extent? I don't know. It also doesn't explain the relative dips for Sauber and Haas, unless they've made awful development decisions also, relative to Williams and Force India. Not totally implausible, but highly improbable.

4) Ferrari have changed the engine maps to help with something and it has hit performance.
A) Changing engine maps and software definitely happens and is 100% legal. Mercedes, Honda and Renault have all improved performance of their engines in season via mapping. So could Ferrari have changed their engine maps and got it wrong? Absolutely, so they could just change them back, and if we see that happen at CotA or elsewhere, and the performance return, fine. They could also have changed engine maps for other reasons, notably to improve the life cycle / longevity of various PU parts. Again this is totally plausible, if Ferrari have been pushing their engines too hard they might need to tune them differently to stop them going bang.

5) Ferrari were cheating and exceeding the ERS deployment limit and the second sensor that has been fitted to Ferrari powered cars has stopped them being able to cheat.
A) Yeah, this explains why Williams can suddenly compete with Sauber, and why Force India's are suddenly competitive again, and why Haas have seemingly dropped back. Plus it explains the sudden loss of "second wind" acceleration the Ferrari powered cars had pre-Singapore. In Russia it looked like it had disappeared, in Suzuka it was gone, and actually the median aero package on the Ferrari looked good, their cars were great through the Esses, and Degnas one and two, they looked very stable. So Ferrari's deficit suddenly looks engine related. So if point 4 isn't plausible we are left with point 5. So decide for yourselves if point 4 is plausible.

I'm not quite ready to go full on "cheating Italian bastards" as ForzaFerrari puts it because there are potential explanations that exclude cheating, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. What I will say is the theory of management struggles / internal wars causing poorer engine performance are bunkum. That also goes for the aero updates causing the deficit, it's bunkum, if only the Ferrari cars were hit then fine, but so too were Sauber and Haas, and last time I checked neither car had Ferrari's new front wing. So I think we are left with options 4 and 5. Given Seb's and Grosjean's concerns over the radio in Suzuka about unnecessary "mileage" maybe Ferrari are managing engine wear issues, and have had to turn their units down. We've seen the issues Renault have had with their spec C engine, perhaps Ferrari have discovered some kind of flaw in their third engine and are now having to manage it. However, there are holes in that narrative too, but I'm willing to believe it for now. The real proof will be if Ferrari stick to their double electrical loom setup, or revert to the lighter, and supposedly more electronically efficient single loom setup next season. Even then it might not be a smoking gun.

[forzaferrari]

Nice write up Jody.

[PapaofGags]

So what are the possibilities in terms of the turn around in fortunes for the various teams?

Nice write up Jody.

Life can be funny some times, I came on here to ask "what happened to Ferrari" I have read quite a bit online but have more understanding now I have read Jody's post than all the other stuff, interesting read, nice one Jody, cheers.  

[Monster Hesh]

Great post Jody, the answer is in there somewhere!

What would be great to see is a comparison of both Ferrari and Mercedes coming out of a slow corner. One from when Ferrari were ahead in the traps, to now, where Mercedes are topping the figures. To see if Ferrari have still got that low end torque acceleration advantage. Problem is F1 with their censorship, aren't publishing telemetry graphics so there's no real chance of that happening.

I guess we might not ever know. WC's are pretty much decided, teams have moved on to 2019, everyone else will follow suit soon.

[Jody Barton]

Thanks for the kind words. I've really been rather deflated by Ferrari's seeming backwards step, up until Russia I was defending them and saying it could be a bum turn or or a development cul-de-sac, I even defended Ferrari along those lines on this very forum, I'm ruling out the first 3 options as explaining the deficit though. It is engine related, and it is across all Ferrari powered cars, that's the clue or evidence it is power unit related somehow. If just one or two teams had suffered a dip in relative performance we could conclude it was F1's usual development wars playing out. There is also the fact that the deficit is seemingly the same issue across all Ferrari powered cars.

Hesh I too would love to see the telemetry and traces, but that's just not going to happen, we know that prior to this season the best engine at pulling out of slower corners was clearly the Renault, it stalled its acceleration curve sooner than both Ferrari and Mercedes, but in low speed high traction situations Renault had nailed it consistently, this season however Ferrari had caught up with them, not necessarily over taken them, but certainly caught up. The biggest difference was how far along the straights the Ferrari seemingly was able to "pull". It was Renault who first thought something was hinky.

The traces we'd seen prior to all of this showed consistent acceleration and then consistent tail off as the engines peaked out performance, in the previous seasons the Mercedes was able to "pull" for longer along the straights and it was this which gave them their big engine advantage, that and their undeniable bhp advantage. The hinky thing from the Ferrari side was the "double pull" as Abitobul put it in Silverstone I think, we also saw Horner and Toto raise their eyebrows at it. The Ferrari acceleration curve was normal, seemed to start tailing off, and then it would start pulling again, it was especially noticeable on long straights or full throttle sections of track. I'm told by engineers it is an "unusual" trace, and is indicative of or similar too adding NOS to the fuel, or an extra motor kicking in.

I believed that Ferrari had just discovered something or developed a smarter more efficient way of deploying ERS, that's still 100% possible by the way, but the question then becomes why has that disappeared since Singapore? Because it has. It could just be that my point 4B is the reason, that they've had to turn their engines down to save their electronic systems, batteries or some other element of their PU's, or perhaps even to control vibrations to save gearboxes. Given Sauber and Haas do both use Ferrari gearboxes, again the tuning things down to save components is plausible, and what I want to believe for now, and then choose to believe this coinciding with the second sensor being added to the Ferrari cars is nothing more than coincidence. I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt, but it is very tenuous at this stage.

[LotusLover]

Thanks for the kind words. I've really been rather deflated by Ferrari's seeming backwards step, up until Russia I was defending them and saying it could be a bum turn or or a development cul-de-sac, I even defended Ferrari along those lines on this very forum, I'm ruling out the first 3 options as explaining the deficit though. It is engine related, and it is across all Ferrari powered cars, that's the clue or evidence it is power unit related somehow. If just one or two teams had suffered a dip in relative performance we could conclude it was F1's usual development wars playing out. There is also the fact that the deficit is seemingly the same issue across all Ferrari powered cars.

Hesh I too would love to see the telemetry and traces, but that's just not going to happen, we know that prior to this season the best engine at pulling out of slower corners was clearly the Renault, it stalled its acceleration curve sooner than both Ferrari and Mercedes, but in low speed high traction situations Renault had nailed it consistently, this season however Ferrari had caught up with them, not necessarily over taken them, but certainly caught up. The biggest difference was how far along the straights the Ferrari seemingly was able to "pull". It was Renault who first thought something was hinky.

The traces we'd seen prior to all of this showed consistent acceleration and then consistent tail off as the engines peaked out performance, in the previous seasons the Mercedes was able to "pull" for longer along the straights and it was this which gave them their big engine advantage, that and their undeniable bhp advantage. The hinky thing from the Ferrari side was the "double pull" as Abitobul put it in Silverstone I think, we also saw Horner and Toto raise their eyebrows at it. The Ferrari acceleration curve was normal, seemed to start tailing off, and then it would start pulling again, it was especially noticeable on long straights or full throttle sections of track. I'm told by engineers it is an "unusual" trace, and is indicative of or similar too adding NOS to the fuel, or an extra motor kicking in.

I believed that Ferrari had just discovered something or developed a smarter more efficient way of deploying ERS, that's still 100% possible by the way, but the question then becomes why has that disappeared since Singapore? Because it has. It could just be that my point 4B is the reason, that they've had to turn their engines down to save their electronic systems, batteries or some other element of their PU's, or perhaps even to control vibrations to save gearboxes. Given Sauber and Haas do both use Ferrari gearboxes, again the tuning things down to save components is plausible, and what I want to believe for now, and then choose to believe this coinciding with the second sensor being added to the Ferrari cars is nothing more than coincidence. I'm still giving them the benefit of the doubt, but it is very tenuous at this stage.

Nice read and informative, my question is... do you think the reason will become apparent for Ferraris loss of performance if not then it will be as you say a bit of assumption, if something was untoward wouldn’t the FIA need to show transparency and penalise them surely? Or will Ferrari cite another reason (or do they even have too?) either way it is very odd, I am guessing they will cite Mercedes development was just too good to compete with? Thoughts?

[Jody Barton]

Hey LotusLover, I do not think the cause will become apparent, you can have suspicions one way or the other but it is never going to be clear. Even if the other teams think it is clearly something untoward, or even if the FIA believe it to be so, good luck proving it. The Ferrari engines with one sensor breached no rules or regulations for deployment of KERS or ERS or whatever the hell they are calling it. The Ferrari with two sensors also doesn't breach the rules and regulations, so what would the FIA penalize? Issue a penalty on a hunch, an educated guess? Sorry, not plausible.

As to Ferrari needing to cite another reason? They don't need too, and nor would they have too if there was no change in engine performance, however, Arrivabene's rather bizarre lashing out over the sensor rumour and threatening legal action is slightly bizarre. Most teams just ignore the situation if they aren't cheating, and just get on with it. However, we've seen RBR and Merc defend their FRIC systems, when they knew it was ride height adjustment for aero efficiency. We also saw Merc and RBR defend their front steering systems even though yet again we could all see they were breaches of the spirit of the regulations at least, and they had to deal with the loss of both, but they did so quietly and didn't draw attention to themselves. Arrivabene's antics look like those of a guilty man. Ironically I think it was Jean Todt while at Ferrari who said don't believe a rumour in F1 until somebody denies it.

The issue Ferrari have is that the Mercedes powered cars DO seem to have sorted their traction out, BUT their accerlation curve and traces remain the same as before, just slightly modified it seems in terms of how they deploy their KERS. So if Mercedes have improved performance, it's not via a massive engine boost, because it's not there, it doesn't appear in the GPS traces. Also the advantage Ferrari had has gone, and you can't really explain that away via aero updates or even suspension updates, the Ferrari engines are behaving differently, hence Horners joke that the Renault engine had either found some performance without any updates, or some "other" teams had lost some performance for some reason. The truth is the Ferrari's weren't massively quicker than the Renault C spec engine on the straights in Suzuka... that's the telltale give away. We had the Renault team able to fend off Ferrari powered cars and even pass them, something we've not really seen all season. Meanwhile the Merc powered cars had an advantage it seemed to me over Ferrari powered cars, The Force India's harassing Grosjean and both nearly getting past him when all season they've had a deficit in the straights was odd too. I actually have to give credit to Grosjean for a great defensive drive to hold off Ocon.

So no, you can't explain it away via Mercedes development, because it has hit all the Mercedes cars, and they don't have any new components at all, the issue isn't much better Mercedes engine performance, because that just isn't the case, nope, it's much worse Ferrari performance. Are we all forgetting how far off the Ferrari's were to Red Bulls race pace? In race trim the Ferrari's were a clear third best in terms of race pace. So you are left with option 4 or 5 from my list I think.