Tom Clarkson believes Ferrari’s ‘culture of fear’ has lifted after 2026 Bahrain testing
· Yahoo Sports
Journalist and broadcaster Tom Clarkson believes the level of innovation Ferrari were showing during pre-season testing suggests that a ‘culture of fear’ within the team has now disappeared.
The Monegasque driver was over eight-tenths faster than the next best time set by Mercedes driver Andrea Kimi Antonelli, with his Ferrari teammate Lewis Hamilton more than a second further back.
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There’s only so much you can take from headline lap times in pre-season, but one thing Fred Vasseur will have liked seeing is how willing his team seemed to push new ideas compared to others up and down the grid.
The real eye-catcher was the Ferrari’s new rear wing, which first appeared on Hamilton’s car on day two, grabbing plenty of attention for its bold design. It quickly earned a nickname too, with social media fans calling it the ‘Macarena’ wing due to its distinctive shape.
Fred Vasseur has removed the ‘culture of fear’ from Ferrari
Tom Clarkson, speaking to Jolyon Palmer about Ferrari on the F1 Nation Podcast, said: “I love the innovations that we saw on the Ferrari as well. Whether it’s the rotating rear wing, whether it’s the aero vein by the exhaust.
“This is Loic Serra’s first car as technical director, and for a team that is such a pressure cooker environment, to be introducing these innovations suggests that it’s a very healthy, happy environment there.
“Otherwise, if there was a culture of fear and getting something wrong, you wouldn’t be doing that.
“So I think Fred Vasseur [the] team principal has obviously done a brilliant job in encouraging people to do what they do and not be afraid to come up with new stuff.”
Palmer responded: “I felt like everyone in the paddock was kind of playing down this rear wing, but I mean it was flipped upside down on the main straight! I’ve never seen anything like it in my life!
“When you look at it surely it is reducing drag. You’re getting a bigger hole through the air by flipping the wing upside down and I believe that aspect will give them an advantage.
“But then you have to wonder what are the costs of that? Number one weight might be a factor when you need maybe reinforce certain parts and add weight to reinforce parts and add weight to rear wing and other thing is how quickly does it shut?
“I really hope that they run it for one race at least at the start of the year and we can see because for me would go down as one of great innovations.”
Hamilton’s race engineer absence still a challenge for Ferrari
Ferrari have looked promising in pre-season before, but turning that into sustained success has often been a different story.
The Scuderia haven’t lifted a championship trophy since 2008, and despite high hopes in recent years, the results have rarely matched the optimism.
Leclerc seems to be adapting well to the new regulations. With the 28-year-old calling this season a “now or never” moment for himself and Ferrari, Vasseur will be hoping he can deliver more consistently than last year.
But Hamilton is rarely an easy competitor to outpace. Vasseur knows from his Mercedes days that when Hamilton is dialled in, few can match him over a season.
Hamilton’s situation isn’t helped by not having a permanent race engineer yet. Riccardo Adami has moved to another role within Ferrari, and no replacement has been confirmed ahead of the new campaign.
The communication between driver and engineer is expected to be crucial this year because of how strategies will shift with battery deployment and energy recovery systems coming into play under the updated rules.
This missing link could prove costly early on for Hamilton as he heads into Melbourne without that critical partnership fully established.
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