Why Leclerc/Sainz line-up won't solve Ferrari's biggest problem

There are many exciting reasons why Ferrari fans should be looking forward to the 2021 Formula 1 season.

In addition to hopes that the joys of 'normal' life will have returned by then, the team will have a fresh driver line-up - with Carlos Sainz Jr partnering Charles Leclerc to form a partnership that fizzes with class and talent.

The duo will form the Scuderia's youngest driver pairing for generations and moves the team completely away from the years where it stuck firmly with long-established pros, even though in more than a few cases it had been established that some were past their best.

Ideally, one would expect the team to be thinking Sainz's arrival will take Leclerc to new heights, while the current McLaren racer will be out to make an instant impression after switching from orange to red.

But the fundamental reason for Ferrari's lack of success in recent years cannot be fully put down to its driver line-up not generating an extra competitive edge. The cars produced in Maranello simply haven't been good enough.

Since 2014, when Mercedes punched to the front of the F1 grid with its power unit prowess, there has only been one season where Ferrari can realistically claim to have produced a car to rival the Silver Arrows. In 2018, Vettel took the SF71H to the championship lead after 10 of the 21 races - and even after his catastrophic Hockenheim off at the next round he picked up the challenge with victory at Spa before the rot really set in and his series of gaffes eased Lewis Hamilton's path to his fifth world title.

But just imagine that year hadn't seemingly set off a chain of events that led to the end of Vettel's Ferrari dream (which we should of course acknowledge could yet still end happily, even if, as we will come on to discuss, this looks remote at best).

PLUS: How Vettel's Ferrari dream died

If Vettel had won the 2018 title, that may well have shaped things differently in 2019. But the way Mercedes responded with the testing upgrades to the W10 (planned many months before, of course) suggests history would more than likely have played out as it indeed did.

So, if we take 2018 as Ferrari's one chance to score a first title in the hybrid era, that would still leave the team trailing 5-1 since 2014 if it had seized that opportunity.

Vettel's Ferrari tenure seems more than likely set to end in disappointment, as it so recently did with his predecessor as the team's talisman: Fernando Alonso

Ferrari hasn't won a world title since it clinched the 2008 constructors' championship. Its drought extends way back beyond the introduction of the hybrid engines.

Even during Red Bull's run of titles during the opening four seasons of the decade just gone, Ferrari only finished as runner-up in the constructors' championship on one occasion. In 2010, 2011 and 2013 it was beaten by McLaren (on the first two occasions) and Mercedes respectively.

And, while it did seem that at times during the years since 2008 that Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen were not fully justifying their places in one of the highest-profile F1 seats, and since 2014 one of only six Class A seats with race-winning potential, Ferrari still failed to regularly provide championship-clinching machinery.

Vettel's Ferrari tenure seems more than likely set to end in disappointment, as it so recently did with his predecessor as the team's talisman: Fernando Alonso.

All of the negative noises Ferrari made regarding the SF1000's place in the pecking order during February's pre-season testing at Barcelona means it must be considered behind Mercedes and Red Bull before a single competitive lap of the 2020 season has taken place.

Trackside observation suggest the car has an inherent understeer problem that leaves its drivers at a disadvantage compared to its rivals, and where 2019's SF90 was so strong - in the power stakes - Ferrari's major advantage has disappeared in the clouds of the 'settlement' with the FIA.

So, Vettel is already facing the prospect of his final year with Ferrari being underwhelming on the competitive front. But Sainz's chances in 2021 are marked by the same card, as the 2020 machines will be largely kept on for a further season as a result of F1's coronavirus cost-saving measures.

Unless Ferrari has been conducting a massive and masterful misdirection campaign (with the tempering of expectations actually not a bad plan after the painful lessons of 2019's pre-season optimism in mind), the cycle seems set to repeat even as the faces change on what is currently Vettel's side of the garage.

So, it is interesting to again consider his words from his interview with Motorsport.com's Roberto Chinchero in Melbourne (in what seems like another lifetime, pre-pandemic).

"The mission is still the same, because we are not at the top," he said. "Obviously Mercedes has beaten us the last [few] years, so the mission is still up.

"Obviously we had a lot of races and we made a lot of experiences. I think there were some great moments and there were some moments that were not so great but, as I said, the mission is still there and the target is still there to achieve the mission - to win with Ferrari."

The next chapter in the Ferrari mission has its two leading characters in Leclerc and Sainz. The team must now solve its principle problem - how to give them a machine that will take them to the ultimate F1 glory

What was once Alonso's mission passed to Vettel (Raikkonen was the last driver to actually complete the journey and take a famous title in 2007), and now it more than likely passes again - still unfulfilled - to Leclerc and Sainz.

There is hope on the horizon in the shape of the rules reset that has been pushed back to 2022. But at the same time, and of course this is written without taking into account any potential team exits during the coming economic challenge, Ferrari's main rival has proved to be adept at surfing regulation changes to secure more silver success.

Whatever happens, the next chapter in the Ferrari mission has its two leading characters in Leclerc and Sainz. The team must now solve its principle problem - how to give them a machine that will take them to the ultimate F1 glory.