30/10/2018
NEWS STORY
Be it a sports psychologist for its star driver or another behind the scenes managerial and technical reshuffle, come season end Ferrari will be looking for answers as to how it came so close and eventually ended up with nothing.
While the post-mortems get underway, fans of a certain age will be aware that the Italian team has been down this route many times before, that nothing is new.
Between Jody Scheckter's 1979 title and Michael Schumacher's in 2000, Ferrari went 21 years without a Driver's' Championship, and with Kimi Raikkonen the most recent Ferrari champion (2007), the Italian team has now gone 11 years, despite having the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, both of whom have finished runner-up but missed out on the ultimate prize.
Having been there before, and knowing that even with Michael Schumacher at the helm it took five seasons before it all came together, Ross Brawn has warned his old team about the perils of a knee-jerk reaction.
"Ferrari and Vettel must start over from here, by understanding what went wrong and improving on it, without panic, and without knee-jerk reactions," he warned.
"In just two seasons, Ferrari has once more become a contender for titles, something that seemed difficult to imagine at the start of this hybrid era, given Mercedes undoubted power advantage. Now Ferrari has to move forward, without throwing any babies out with the bathwater.
"In the post-race conference, Vettel seemed dejected and I can understand that," he admitted. "When the goal you have been chasing all season is definitively put out of reach there's a lot to regret if one looks back on previous races, what might have been, and what could have been improved on.
"These are situations I know well. I've experienced them at first hand in the same team as the German."
While Vettel's sincere congratulating of Lewis Hamilton on Sunday has won the German new fans, in recent weeks his demeanour has suggested that he isn't currently enjoying his racing, that the lack of success is hurting. Indeed, he has shown himself to be human. Brawn, who worked with Michael Schumacher through all seven of his titles, is aware of the legend's ruthless determination, a trait that Hamilton shares.
"To take the title with two races remaining is very impressive, with Lewis supported by an equally brilliant team," admitted the Briton. "If I had to choose one characteristic that makes Lewis special, it's his ability to win so many races in which he wasn't the favourite, as we saw several times this year, in Hockenheim, Budapest and Monza to name but a few. Of course, he also won those in which he was deemed to be the man most likely to win.
"It's a characteristic he shares with the only driver to have won more titles than him, Michael Schumacher. Lewis was already part of Formula One's history and now he is truly a legend of the sport."