原文：《The stats that prove Ferrari is on the road to recovery》
By Luke Smith (motorsport)
With Ferrari struggling with its worst performance in F1 in nearly 40 years, the 2021 team has always focused on rebuilding and planning for the future.
With an overhaul of the technical rules in 2022 and only limited car development allowed this year, the most successful and famous team in F1 has been able to focus on doing the right thing for most of the season.
In the season that just ended, Ferrari made impressive progress on almost every indicator. The team rose from P6 to P3 in the standings, adding 192.5 points to two pole positions and five podiums.
Sainz and Leclerc are ranked P5 and P7 in the drivers' standings, winning double-car points for the team in 17 of the 22 races. Ferrari's only pointless race was in France, when it encountered a headache of tyre management problems.
The signs that Ferrari are recovering are more than just points.
In 2020, in addition to the lack of speed in the car that hinders Ferrari, race execution is one of its weakest links. The team even admitted in December that its pit stop was "a long way from its best" and had been plagued by the use of "wheel nuts" for a season.
In the 2020 season, Ferrari had only 48% of pit stops of less than 3 seconds (a well-defined, stable pit stop metric that teams generally use), ranking ninth out of 10 F1 teams.
But by 2021, that number rises to 73 percent, putting Ferrari in third place. The team also increased its average pit stop time from 2.72 seconds to 2.55 seconds.
"We've made a pretty big plan to try to turn things around, both in the car and in the team, because some of the new technologies we've used have brought good results and the approach we've used to train the team," explains Laurent Mekies, Ferrari's sporting director.
"Now, in terms of points, we're third, yes, we're third on points. So I think it's a good indication that the team's work is being done well, including pit stops and tyre management, which plays a role in the race strategy and a lot of things. ”
While Ferrari may not be fighting for victory or title this year, the team will see the race with McLaren for third place in the table as their own title battle. The two teams were evenly matched throughout the year, but a strong performance at the end of the season gave Ferrari a P3 and a 47.5 points lead over their opponents.
"The key is a fierce championship battle like this, when the points are very close, requiring the highest level of execution," Merkes said.
"There are no excuses this year. Because for us, even if the car is not as fast as we want, we are still like fighting for the world championship. ”
Sainz, who came to Ferrari from McLaren, noticed the need to improve race execution, and the team used the "bottom valley" as a starting point to continuously improve and strengthen the operation without taking on the pressure.
"It's a big deal for me," Sainz told Motorsport.com. "When I joined the team at the beginning of the season, I really felt that we had to improve the performance of the race execution in terms of race strategy and tyre management. The first game was very difficult.
"I really feel like a lot of progress has been made in that regard throughout the season. The car may be a little better, but less than a tenth of a second from the beginning of the season. But you can see the consistency we have in the execution of the game now, which is very different from the beginning of the season. ”
Ferrari's performance in the 2021 race is also a key piece of evidence for their improvement of the stability and reliability of the team. The team went from 6 DNFs in 2020 to one in 2021 (excluding Leclerc Monaco's DNS), and they achieved more of the top ten of the race than any other team.
However, the speed of the car itself is where Ferrari desperately needs to move forward after a disastrous 2020. Not only did the team manage to regain the lead in midstream teams, finishing third in the table, but it also narrowed the gap with Mercedes.
According to Ferrari, the average gap between qualifying and Mercedes narrowed from 1.34 seconds in 2020 to 0.64 seconds in 2021, a gap as small as 0.4 seconds at the beginning of the year but gradually widening as the season progresses.
Ferrari Team Boss Binotto said: "We are fully aware that the gap between us and the optimal level has not been narrowed and 0.6 seconds is still a big number. ”
"But the goal is to try to close the gap. We are fully aware of what will happen in 2020, and I think realistically, closing the gap is impossible. ”
Ferrari's progress in race pace has been limited, but it still shows good signs of improvement: the average gap with Mercedes has dropped from 1.1 seconds to 0.8 seconds. Binotto called it "still a huge gap", but noted that Ferrari have not developed much of the car throughout the season as it has focused on 2022.
"It shows that we're not really developing a car that other teams might be doing," Binotto said. "I think in terms of design and development throughout the winter, it has been reduced from 1.3 seconds to 0.4 seconds.
"The gap has widened during the season because as a ferrari option we are totally focused on 2022, except for the power unit. But the numbers show once again that we are narrowing the gap with our competitors. ”
In preparation for the new rules that are coming in 2022, this is all encouraging to Ferrari. The team proved itself to be making progress in the winter, stepped up the race run and had one of the strongest driver squads.
The challenge for Ferrari now is to put everything together this winter so that it can take advantage of the new rules and once again contend with Mercedes and Red Bull.