I agree entirely with your last sentence when you say "the car is the reason they aren’t competing for this championship or even for wins." Even since the departure of Schumacher and Raikkonen Ferrari has never really had a dominating car capable of winning a championship for the driver. The list of drivers that you quote contains three previous champions with other teams,but none ever did it for Ferrari. This surely suggests that the car is the reason and Elkann needs a reality check.
Cool looking black Ferrari that Perez drove in a test at Imola on Thursday. No sponsors no adds just a bit of yellow on wheel brows. please log in to view this image
I’d say even the 2007/2008 cars were only competitive, certainly in 2007 McLaren for sure had the better car. 2008 is hard to read because Raikkonen dropped off so much that Massa became the lead Ferrari driver and Hamilton made quite a lot of mistakes which created a fight of what should have been an easy McLaren win. In a world where Alonso doesn’t fall out with McLaren, my impression is that he adapts increasingly to the Bridgestones, wins 2007 (just) and 2008 (not dominant, but never really in doubt), Hamilton takes a bunch of wins and Raikonnen stays motivated cleans up the rest. Ferrari is occasionally the best car at some races, but not consistently enough to really expect a Championship in either year. If I were a Ferrari fan, I think what I’d be most disappointed in is that that there’s no synergy where they make each other stronger and build something together. RedBull have done this spectacularly with Vettel and Verstappen and even to a lesser extent Riccardo, Merc seem to be doing it with Russell despite their challenges in the GE era. It was happening a bit with Sainz, but I don’t think it was ever going to get to a Championship level. Despite their obvious love Charles and Ferrari have for each other, I don’t see it there either. The only time in my lifetime they have done that is with Schumacher. Maybe this is just another way to express Jazz’s “pulling in the same direction point”, but it also makes me think “does that come from team, driver or both?” My feeling is that the driver is an important part, certainly when I think about Schumacher, Verstappen and Russell, that seems clearly true - maybe that’s where Elkan is coming from “it’s not worked this year, but we need you to engage and build something for the future and I’m not seeing that”?
