‘Disappointed and angry’ Ferrari left with nowhere to run as homecoming horror show lies in wait

“Disappointed and angry”. That was the verdict of Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto after watching Sebastian Vettel finish the Belgian Grand Prix in 13th, just one place in front of teammate Charles Leclerc.

For Ferrari, Sunday’s race at Spa peaked on lap one when Leclerc managed to elevate himself up to eighth, only to quickly fall out of the points as the full extent of their power unit deficit was revealed. Pierre Gasly, Sergio Perez, Lando Norris and Daniil Kvyat all came flooding past in a handful of laps, and quickly enough Leclerc found himself fighting Vettel for the honour of 12th place, and it would continue to get worse.

Slow pit stops, unexplained strategy calls and no race pace whatsoever left the two as sitting ducks out on the Kemmel Straight, and the misery reached a crescendo when Kimi Raikkonen came sailing past, his Alfa Romeo powered by the same engine that was dealing the works Ferrari team a nightmare season.

"We are disappointed and angry, as indeed are our fans and with good reason,” team principal Binotto said. “It’s a difficult moment in a season that we knew from the start would be a tough one"

"But it’s at times like this that we need to stand firm and look ahead in order to get over this difficult period. It’s the only way we will get out of this situation."

Will it? It’s hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel in 2020, and when the team’s own chairman John Elkann has already written off 2021 as another year with no wins, is this the end of Ferrari as we know it?

The team went without victories in 2014 and 2016, but it was never this bad. Even in the pre-Michael Schumacher days, Jean Alesi and Gerhard Berger struggled to finish races, but there was still the odd win here and there and regular podiums.

But it may never be as humiliating as what could come next weekend. Ferrari return to Monza, their own turf, facing what could be a weekend even tougher than their Belgian experience. With raw speed just about the only requirement for the Italian Grand Prix, Ferrari’s well-publicised power unit troubles will be brutally exposed. The only saving grace is that their own fans, who flock to the track in their tens of thousands, will not be on site to witness the humiliation - and equally Ferrari will not directly witness the backlash.

The only problem is what follows. What’s worse than one home Grand Prix when things aren’t going your way? Two.

The inaugural Tuscany Grand Prix at Mugello follows where fans will be allowed into the venue, albeit in a strictly-limited capacity of 2,880 each day. That said, that’s still 8,600 angry Italians at the closest F1-approved track to their base in Maranello just 120km to the north. The one positive is that they remain the only team who have been able to drive at Mugello in pre-season testing, although that would still be clutching at straws given how deep this crisis goes.

Binotto was keen to stress after the Spa horror show was not entirely a power unit-related issue, but that aerodynamics were also to play. But it’s impossible to assess how poor Ferrari, Alfa Romeo and Haas - the three Ferrari-powered teams on the grid - have been this season and not believe that the FIA’s technical clarification last year is to blame.

Whatever Ferrari were doing with their fuel flow mechanism - which remains private due to a much-criticised settlement between the two parties - it has cost them dear this season, and will do next year too when the regulations remain the same because of the coronavirus pandemic.

You would think that their current predicament would generate an ounce of sympathy from their former rivals. But this is Formula One, and in a world where the same could easily happen to a Toto Wolff, or a Christian Horner, the scars of last season’s uncomfortable cover-up remain too raw.

“The whole thing left quite a sour taste,” said Red Bull boss Christian Horner. “Obviously you can draw your own conclusions from Ferrari’s current performance.

“But there were races that we should have won last year arguably if they did run with an engine that (now) seems to be quite different in terms of performance than they had last year.”

While Horner was keen to rub salt in the wounds, Mercedes counterpart Wolff went for more of a massage approach - but crucially the message remains the same: the grid are not happy with Ferrari.

“It’s difficult to say because I don’t want to put any more oil into this… but we were really stretched so much last year, and the year before that,” Wolff said.

“We suffered. And we lost some people (from the team) in terms of just being at the end of their health.

“This is why I would probably follow Christian’s comment.”

With the new Concorde Agreement altering the special privileges that Ferrari are afforded by the FIA for being the only constant on the grid, is their power within Formula One starting to dwindle? It’s premature to say with certainty, but the answer to that question certainly isn’t a no.