Luca Baldisserri, a former Formula 1 engineering luminary best known for his tenure as Michael Schumacher’s race engineer, confidently asserts that Ferrari could very well be nipping at Red Bull’s heels as early as 2024. Baldisserri, who witnessed the zenith of Ferrari’s championship-winning heydays, challenges the narrative that Ferrari was overshadowed by Red Bull’s recent ascendancy.
“It was a normal trend,” Baldisserri conveyed to La Gazzetta dello Sport, addressing the changes in Ferrari’s management structure with Frederic Vasseur taking the helm this year. He offers a unique lens for assessing team performance, focusing particularly on the secondary drivers. “When I analyse a car I always do it by considering the performance of the second driver. And in this sense, it is even clearer that Ferrari’s performance was not that much inferior to that of Sergio Perez’s Red Bull,” the 60-year-old Italian explained.
Baldisserri credits Max Verstappen’s exceptional abilities for Red Bull’s edge, saying, “The other car was so far ahead because it had an extraterrestrial behind the wheel.” This comment, delivered with a smile, underscores his recognition of Verstappen’s extraordinary talent.
Turning to the Ferrari vs Red Bull comparison, Baldisserri perceives the Italian-made single-seater’s performance in a positive light. “I would say that in qualifying, Ferrari was very close, if not ahead, of Red Bull,” he assessed. He also pointed to Carlos Sainz’s triumph in Singapore as evidence of Ferrari’s competitiveness, stating, “What’s more, (Carlos) Sainz won a race, albeit on an atypical track like Singapore. If we don’t look at things with the eye of a fan who would like to see Ferrari always win, it didn’t go badly.”
Looking ahead, Baldisserri sees a bright horizon for Ferrari in 2024. “Absolutely yes, I think it is,” he confidently stated regarding Ferrari’s potential to challenge Red Bull. He attributes this to the stability in the regulations aiding Ferrari’s efforts. However, he acknowledges the broader challenge, concluding, “To really know what is necessary, I’d have to still be inside the team. And it’s one thing to recover the gap to Red Bull, but another thing – and a more difficult thing – to recover the gap to Verstappen.”
