Fall from grace- Ferrari F60 - #Blogpost

The 2000s were an extremely successful period for Ferrari, having been dominant in the first 5 years by winning both the constructor’s and driver’s championships in these years, while 2005 would be an unsuccessful year for the Scuderia, they would continue to fight for the championship in 2006 and win both championships in 2007 and further win the constructor’s title in 2008, missing out on the driver’s title by only one point.

2009 however, would be the start of Ferrari’s championship drought. With the major rule changes for 2009, bringing much simpler aero, slick tyres, lower revving engines and KERS, it was back to square one for all the teams and unfortunately for Ferrari, they weren’t able to make the most out of the new rules.

The F60 was very simple in terms of aero, much like all of the 2009 F1 cars. The front wing was much further in front than last year’s cars and was wider, much like the sidepods which were also bigger and wider but didn’t have any winglets or aero devices coming out on the sides because those were banned with the regulation changes, the sidepods were developed throughout the season and were eventually made slightly smaller and moved further towards the back , the rear wing was much higher and narrower than before. The only other major change was the KERS, which was placed towards the rear of the car, underneath the engine.

As the season started, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, Red Bull and BMW protested against the “Double Diffuser” used by the Brawn, Williams and Toyota teams, claiming it was illegal, however the FIA claimed the the diffuser was legal and the non-diffuser teams’ claims were rejected.

From the very first race of the season it was evident that Ferrari had an uncompetitive car, with Massa and Raikkonen qualifying 6th and 8th respectively for the first race at Melbourne. The race itself however would prove to be even more miserable for the Italian team with a double DNF, Massa retiring with suspension failure and Raikkonen with a differential problem.

Things didn’t get much better for Ferrari at the second race at Malaysia, with Massa out in Q1 and Raikkonen only qualifying in 9th. Ferrari managed to royally bottle the strategy in a race affected with heavy rain and didn’t score any points in the championship. The third race at China would show no improvements with Massa qualifying 13th and Raikkonen 8th and once again neither of them scoring points with Massa retiring with an electrical issue.

Ferrari would finally score their first points of the season at Bahrain Grand Prix with Raikkonen finishing 6th and getting 3 valuable points for the team while Massa only managed 14th. From Bahrain onwards Ferrari’s season would start to pick up some momentum with Massa finishing 6th at the next race in Spain and Raikkonen getting the team’s first podium of the season at Monaco.

Massa had a consistent run of points finishes from Spain onwards scoring in every race after that and getting his first podium of the season at Germany. The next race at Hungary however would be an awful one for him, getting hit in the face with a shock absorber that fell off the Brawn of Rubens Barrichello in qualifying knocking him unconscious and out for the rest of the season. While Raikkonen would finish the race in 2nd, not having their main driver meant that Ferrari would have to replace him with another driver for the European Grand Prix.

The man Ferrari picked to replace Massa for the European Grand Prix was Luca Badoer, a driver who had raced in 1990s and had been a test driver for Ferrari. Badoer didn’t show much pace at being over 1.3 seconds a lap slower in practice than Raikkonen and managed to rack up 4 penalties for speeding in the pit lane. He qualified last, 1.5 seconds slower than the Toro Rosso in 19th and finished the race as the second last finisher in 17th while Kimi Raikkonen scored Ferrari’s 4th podium of the season in 3rd.

It was announced at the Belgium Grand Prix that Kimi Raikkonen would leave Ferrari at the end of the season with Fernando Alonso replacing him.

Badoer’s last race with Ferrari would be at Belgium
where he would once again qualify last and finish last. But the highlight was Kimi Raikkonen’s storming drive from 6th on the grid to win the race. Raikkonen’s win would be Ferrari’s only win of the season and he would win from a margin of only nine tenths from the Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella.

After quietly dropping Badoer, Ferrari would then employ the services of Belgium Grand Prix pole sitter, Giancarlo Fisichella who would take over the second Ferrari for the rest of the season.

Ferrari’s home race at the Italian Grand Prix would provide relative success with Raikkonen qualifying and finishing in 3rd bringing Ferrari their 6th and last podium of the season. Fisichella would manage his best finish with Ferrari with 9th, just outside the points.

Ferrari would score no points at Singapore but would manage a 4th and a 6th at Japan and Brazil with Raikkonen but then failing to score at the season finale at Abu Dhabi. Giancarlo Fisichella would not score any points in any of these races and would continue on at Ferrari as a test driver.

Inconsistent finishes would mean that Ferrari would miss out on 3rd in the constructor’s championship to McLaren by just one point. Lewis Hamilton’s win at Singapore and a further 3 podiums to finish off the season would see him beat Kimi Raikkonen in the driver’s championship by just 1 point while McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen would score 22 points over the course of the season equalling what Massa had managed before his accident.

Ferrari finishing 4th in the Constructor’s Championship would make it their worst season since 1993 and the 2009 season would be the start of Ferrari’s title drought, having not managed a title since.