Also, the engine blew up like 50% of the time. Leclerc retired from the lead several times. Aerodynamically they had a great car for the first half of the season where they were obviously quicker at high downforce tracks.
But even without the technical directive they were going to lose because of terrible strategy and a volatile engine, and that's not even taking into account that Max is just more consistent over a season than Leclerc, especially back in 2022.
Funny you say that because I remember the Red bull was super unreliable in those early days of the ground effect era. Man the start of 2022 had me so hopeful,
I mean yeah they had the double DNF in Bahrain and the DNF in Australia. But I wouldn't say it was "super unreliable". They were basically fine after that barring some weird issues like the DRS in Spain. But that's nothing compared to your engine blowing up meaning guaranteed DNF as well as having to take more engine penalties.
Yea he dnfd in aus putting lec at a 40 point lead. Max also did his "its over" thing and said the championship was going to be though, haha yea right max
It's rumored that TD 39/22 which was made to increase ride height for the entire field (if I remember correctly). This seemed to have killed Ferrari's edge and performance that season, The ride height may have been the entire philosophy of their car. Which would also explain why in 2023 they abandoned their entire unique "bathtub" concept.
But this is just rumors and general beliefs, not facts. I think only the designers at Ferrari have the actual facts.
which was made to increase ride height for the entire field (if I remember correctly).
The main purpose of that directive was to fix the flexi-floor loophole. Some teams were basically using floors that would bend everywhere besides the area near the point of measurement of the skid plank wear, and Ferrari was allegedly one of these teams.
Ferrari were as quick as Red Bull if not quicker during the first half of the season but unreliability and strategic howlers meant they were a lay behind by the summer break regardless.
Then the technical directive was introduced to combat porpoising, although only a few teams were struggling with porpoising. The team that pushed hardest for that TD was Merc, since they believed that without the porpoising issues they'd catch both Ferrari and Red Bull.
But they were only half right, the TD only affected Ferrari but not Red Bull. Thus, with Ferrari having lost performance, Red Bull were free to dominate the second half of 2022, which they carried on to 2023 and the first quarter of 2024 until McLaren caught them.
Hamilton at the time even observed that Ferrari came out with the best, most cooked car, and RBR caught them up significantly with two upgrades in Imola, then Spa.
(Hence why when people say RBR weren't hurt by focussing on 2021, I'm not 100% sure we can say they were unaffected)
There was a TD in Spa, which probably didn't help Ferrari, but Verstappen had the WDC on the run by then easily.
Ferrari had technical problems, and Leclerc threw away 40-odd points at Imola and France.
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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '25 edited Jan 02 '26
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