Gary Anderson: Monza disaster shows Ferrari’s problems

No amount of money would have made me willing to be at Maranello on Monday morning as part of a team that had endured one of its least successful home grands prix.

I saw Ferrari's former team principal, Stefano Domenicali, at Monza. He looked very happy after his departure in April, and there's no doubt he feels exactly the same as me.

Can you imagine it? Ferrari's most important race, in front of tens of thousands of fans, not to mention the millions watching on television. Before any penalties were issued, its cars qualified seventh and 12th, with Kimi Raikkonen moving up to 11th after Daniil Kvyat was given a 10-place grid penalty.

During my time as a technical director in Formula 1 with Jordan and Stewart, we would have been super-pissed-off with this performance. And we were never in as strong a position either budget-wise or expectation-wise as Ferrari.

Ferrari's long run of reliability ended at Monza after Alonso retired © XPB

But in comparison to race day, Saturday was a good day for them. For it got worse on Sunday, with Alonso retiring with an ERS problem and Raikkonen finishing 10th on-the-road, but moving up to ninth once Kevin Magnussen got his five-second penalty.

Ferrari has now dropped to fourth in the constructors' championship, 292 points behind Mercedes. Alonso has slipped behind Valtteri Bottas in the drivers' championship and is 117 points behind Rosberg, with Raikkonen down in 10th and 197 points adrift.

I think you would be on very safe ground to say that the 2014 season has not met expectations. So, looking at Monza, where did the weekend go wrong?

Here's how the Ferraris performed in terms of single-lap pace. The first segment of qualifying is omitted as the fact that a number of frontrunners set their time on the slower hard-compound Pirellis distorts the picture.

While Mercedes and quite a few other teams were able to pick up the pace for qualifying, Ferrari wasn't. Its performance even led Alonso to say that he could not have found any more time if he had used 100 sets of tyres.

That comment appears to be a clear shot across the bows of Ferrari management, just to say, 'Get this sorted or...'

With all the rumours flying around about Alonso's future, and the fact that he is being actively chased by McLaren, that is significant.

If a team of Ferrari's stature is willing to go for glory on Friday and Saturday morning, I would be amazed. That's a game that the small teams play. I have done it many times myself when there was a need to impress a sponsor.

Both Ferraris struggled to make an impact at Monza, with Raikkonen missing Q3 © LAT

The trouble is, it normally turns around and bites you when you can't back it up when it matters. That's exactly what happened to Ferrari in qualifying and the race at Monza.

Turnarounds seldom happen overnight, so now it's time for Ferrari to look at the big picture, because results have not been good enough for a long time.

Ferrari was last on pole position at the 2012 British Grand Prix, but the last time it did so in dry conditions was in Singapore four years ago!

Going back to the start of 2009, it has just four pole positions - all courtesy of Alonso - and 12 victories in 107 attempts.

And even when it was last in contention for the drivers' championship, in 2012, the car produced for the start of the season was a real dog. On track, it looked a nightmare to drive and only the grit and determination of Alonso brought Ferrari some reasonable result and a run at the title.

We are talking about a team that's supported by millions of fans and expected to win the world championship. Picking up the odd good result here and there thanks to circumstances and a driver that refuses to accept defeat is not good enough.

We can all dig deep if required. But the question is, how long can Alonso keep doing it?

Over the years, Ferrari must have updated its windtunnel more regularly than any other team. When something is wrong with the car, it's normally windtunnel correlation.

Ferrari's windtunnel recently received a comprehensive upgrade after it discovered correlation problems

In my time, I never had a windtunnel that correlated with the track. But what you have to do is understand the reasons for that and live with them. Because you can compensate for that.

Here's an example: on the track, we see sparks coming out from underneath the cars when they touch the ground. You can't allow a windtunnel model to hit the belt or it will just destroy itself.

So there's one thing that immediately means the model in the tunnel will have different low-ride-height characteristics to the car on the track.

Another thing that gets me is that I have been told by several teams many times this year that the nose design is really not that important. Ferrari is one of the teams that believes this to be the case. I do not agree.

If the nose design is not important then that's because the car downstream is not optimised to work with the improved airflow that a better nose design will offer.

Most of the teams that have told me this are struggling, and why on earth would Mercedes have gone to the lengths it did to pass the crash test with its shortened version - which required a significant amount of work - if there was no advantage in doing so?

Williams has shown this year that miracles do happen. But they don't happen if you don't regroup and pull together to find the solution. This is what Ferrari needs to do rather than just coming up with the same old excuses.

Can that happen at Ferrari? I don't think it will happen quickly and imagine there will be a serious amount of blood on the carpet beforehand. After all, that is the Ferrari way, as the fates of the likes of Domenicali, Aldo Costa (who has played a key role in the success of new employer Mercedes) and Luca Marmorini etc showed.

Anyone got Ross Brawn's telephone number?