Can Ferrari beat McLaren, Red Bull to constructors' crown?

AUSTIN, Texas — Any Ferrari victory brings a certain level of hype. One that gets the famed Italian team talking about its first championship of any kind since 2008 is a step above the norm.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz‘s 1-2 finish — their third of the decade — at Sunday’s U.S. Grand Prix was as comfortable as a victory can be in Formula 1. It moved the team to within 41 points of McLaren with five races and two sprints to run, giving the team a clear end-of-year target.

“We’ve got to target winning the constructors’ title,” Leclerc said on Sunday.

It’s a huge statement.

Leclerc was 11 years old when Ferrari last had a championship to celebrate, but there can be no doubt that F1’s most famous team is now in the mix. Ferrari’s story, though, especially in the years since its last championship, is littered with false dawns. Is this another?

Team principal Frédéric Vasseur appeared mindful of that in his postrace comments.

“It was the perfect Sunday,” he said. “We have done a very good job this weekend, scoring a lot of points, but we have to stay focused and not think we are champions just because of today’s result.”

Leclerc’s win looked comfortable, benefitting early on from the fact that Lando Norris and Max Verstappen are locked in a title fight — the Dutchman’s Turn 1 pass on his pole-sitting rival at McLaren helped Leclerc into a lead he never relinquished. In clear air, Ferrari was untouchable, and a brilliantly executed strategy soon helped Sainz by Verstappen for second position as Red Bull and McLaren were locked in a fight among themselves.

“Our pace was always under control, as was the strategy with both drivers, and when you have the slight advantage we had today, it is much easier to do a good job,” Vasseur added. “The car has improved a lot in terms of its drivability compared to where we were a few races ago, and that has contributed to the result.”

Perhaps most encouraging about the nature of the win was that Ferrari did not bring a major upgrade package to Austin. Vasseur had said the sprint weekend, which features just one 60-minute practice session, was “a useful test for the upgrades we introduced at previous races.”

As such, Leclerc has every reason to be optimistic.

“We’ve said since two or three races [ago] in Monza, in Baku, in Singapore, we brought a few upgrades and we were always waiting for Austin because it was going to be the real test for those upgrades, and it seems to be working all good,” he said. “So that is positive for the future. It doesn’t mean that we’ll be having every Sunday the way it’s been today, but it means that we are working in the right direction, and that can only be positive. So I hope we can reproduce these kind of results more often.”

How Ferrari got here

Ferrari’s season has been a curious roller coaster. There have been some incredibly high highs — the previous wins in Australia, Monaco and then in front of the team’s home fans at Monza all stand out — but littered between those points on the calendar has been a series of curious dips. The team appeared to take a wrong turn with an upgrade introduced at the Spanish Grand Prix and spent a few months trying to get things pointed back in the right direction.

Since the summer break, though, there have been signs of the huge progress being made. Leclerc won Monza on merit, and he could have won in Baku had he anticipated Oscar Piastri‘s race-winning overtake. Singapore was a big dip, but Ferrari’s rivals were surprised by its lack of competitiveness. McLaren boss Andrea Stella said on Sunday that Ferrari’s return to form should not have come as a surprise to anyone.

“When it comes to Ferrari, I’ve said that already during the weekend, they have been quick over the previous races, pretty consistently,” he said. “If anything, they’ve not been capable of maximising their potential. I think in Baku, Leclerc, in fairness, was definitely in condition to win the race. In Singapore, we were expecting Leclerc to be very competitive for pole position, and therefore then it would have been the same in the race.

“So we are not surprised that Ferrari is so close. And then when we look at the characteristics of this circuit, in particular because of the braking into very low speed and some very high-speed sections, we know that in these two situations, our car is not at the best of its performance.”

Maximising potential has been Ferrari’s issue for years. Under Maurizio Arrivabene in the late 2010s, the team had the best car but the worst race operation on the grid. Mattia Binotto came in and managed to fix some of the issues behind the scenes, but then the car was not in the right place. When it was in 2022, the same old failings of the team’s race operation were laid bare with a series of excruciatingly high-profile blunders and missed opportunities.

Those moments are happening far less frequently under Vasseur. His first year in charge in 2023 seemed to be largely dedicated to bringing about a calmer approach behind the scenes, and the fruits of that are being seen in the latter stages of this season.

Making the right calls is one thing, but having the car to make them work is quite another. The SF-24 has become incredibly easy on its tyres compared to its predecessors, and the team’s recent strategy calls have shown just how much of an advantage this can provide — head of strategy Ravin Jain joined Leclerc and Sainz on the podium in Austin.

While one is so often framed as ruining the other, Sainz said a team consistently making good strategy calls is a direct result of the car being in the right place.

“Having a good car on race day always helps to make the strategy work,” he said. “And I feel like this year, compared to last year, we have a very strong car on race day. The best example is today: a car that allows you to be the first one to box and still extend the hard tyre and still be quick on the hard tyre and not because of being the first one to box, then degrading more than the others.

“That is something that I’ve struggled with in the past, especially last year, a lot with that. [In] Singapore, I remember boxing on Lap 14 of a 70-lap race or a 60-lap race and still making it to the end. With any other car or with any other year that we’ve had, where degradation and the car was weaker in the race, this wouldn’t be possible. So making bold strategy moves on race day wouldn’t be as easy and you would look more crazy by doing them. And this year, having a car that degrades less the tyres and makes you more competitive on race day also allows you more flexibility and better opportunities to play with the strategy.”

All of this is great news for Ferrari’s title ambitions. The team appears to have a car that can contend every week — that alone puts it in the hunt. Mexico City is always a curious anomaly, but upcoming races in Brazil and Las Vegas provide exciting opportunities to be fighting for victory. McLaren still feels it possesses the most all-rounded car on the grid, but Norris’ dominant Singapore Grand Prix victory seemed like a distant memory as he exited Circuit of the Americas’ Turn 1 in fourth position. Red Bull also made progress in Austin — Verstappen’s sprint victory was his first win of any kind since the Spanish Grand Prix in June — but the team is continually hampered by the results of Sergio Pérez, which suggests the fight from here on out is between McLaren and Ferrari.

The state of the drivers’ championship will also be significant. Leclerc is a true outsider, sitting 79 points behind Verstappen, who holds a 54-point lead over Norris, but Ferrari can consider that a blessing in disguise. As was obvious in Austin, where Verstappen barged past Norris at Turn 1 and then controversially moved back ahead of him thanks to a late penalty in a different incident, Red Bull and McLaren are taking chunks out of each other in a bid to secure that title.

The 41-point deficit in the constructors’ chase might seem like a steep climb, but Ferrari claimed 43 on Sunday to McLaren’s 22.

“If we do everything perfect until the end of the season, no matter what McLaren does, if we do better than them, I think we can still clinch that title,” Leclerc said. “With the drivers’, I see it a bit in a different way. If we do everything perfect, it will require a bit of luck to get that title; we cannot really rely on luck.”

Fortunately for Ferrari, it’s not needed to rely on luck much lately. The performance of its car in Austin suggests it might not need to for the rest of the year.