Former McLaren Formula 1® mechanic turned author, TV presenter, and speaker Marc Priestley feels a culture of "fear" has held Ferrari back in its 2022 F1® title fight that started so promisingly before falling well short.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc won two of the first three races of 2022, including the Formula 1® Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, to see Ferrari leave Albert Park with sizeable leads in the drivers' and constructors' titles, raising hopes of ending a title drought that stretches back to Kimi Raikkonen's 2007 championship for the sport's most famous and enduring team.
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Unreliability and errors ultimately derailed Ferrari's title quest, with Max Verstappen winning his second world title in succession at the Formula 1® Japanese Grand Prix in October, and Red Bull Racing their first constructors' crown since 2013 at the following race in the United States. Since the Australian Grand Prix, Ferrari has won just two more Grands Prix this season, Verstappen and teammate Sergio Perez combining to win 16 races this year.
Speaking to the Australian Grand Prix Corporation's In the Fast Lane podcast, Priestley – who was part of the team behind Lewis Hamilton's first world championship at McLaren in 2008 – felt Ferrari's "restrictive" operating methods have seen it out-manoeuvred by Mercedes and Red Bull, who have won every world championship between them since 2010.
"Ferrari haven't been dominant since the (Michael) Schumacher era, and that was a very long time ago," Priestley told the Australian Grand Prix Corporation's official podcast.
"You have to point the finger at there being something fundamental … there must be a cultural issue there, because they've had every part of the ingredients to win. Something's stopping them getting across that line.
"For me, it's the idea of having freedom in the organisation to make decisions, freedom to think outside the box and take risks. I feel like the team culture at Ferrari has been too restrictive, in that people feel terrified to stick their head above the parapet and make a decision when it comes to things like race strategy and car design. It feels like there's so much fear inside that organisation."
Priestley feels the success of Mercedes and Red Bull across different sets of regulations and rule changes across the past decade is no accident.
"You need to have an environment – and this is a great place that Mercedes and Red Bull have got themselves into – where everyone in that organisation is trusted to do their job," he said.
"If that means sometimes they make a decision on the spot that could be a bit risky, the management trust them to make that decision, knowing that it could go wrong.
"Ferrari, it feels like, are too hesitant to make those decisions. We hear it in their radio communications … we've seen enough evidence now to know that's holding them back. There's no quick fix for that … they have to really start at ground zero and build something over years to be able to get back to the level of success they had."
The podcast is available on Spotify, Google Podcasts and Apple Podcasts platforms.
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