Ferrari is nothing but a shambles right now

Last weekend's German Grand Prix reminded us that Bernie Ecclestone's proposal from some years back that tracks should have a sprinkler system to produce random wet races might not be such a bad idea.

Joking aside, what happened at Hockenheim threw up plenty of randomness and showed that sometimes anything really can happen.

But one thing that seems to keep happening is Ferrari underachieving. After looking genuinely fast in practice, it ended up being saved only by Sebastian Vettel's great drive from 20th on the grid to finish second.

Ferrari is currently nothing other than a shambles - it just goes from one disaster to another and it's getting worse.

As a team that, like Mercedes, constructs its complete package under more or less one roof, it is not forced to make engine installation compromises. Everything can be packaged to the ultimate specification.

Qualifying in Germany was a disaster for Ferrari and I'm pretty sure questions will be asked at the highest level back at the team's base, but those at the top will need to remember: they were the ones that instigated the changes that have led to this fiasco. I think those changes and the way they have affected Ferrari are now haunting it and it won't be an overnight job to sort them out.

Back in January, when we got the news that Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene had been sacked, this is what I wrote:

"When I first heard Ferrari had appointed Mattia Binotto as team principal in place of Maurizio Arrivabene, I thought the team was mad. And a week on, I still believe this to be correct - and not because I don't think Binotto is very capable.

"Binotto took over the technical management of Ferrari's 1.6-litre V6 turbo hybrid engine project as part of a reshuffle announced at the end of July 2014. This was at a point where Ferrari's initial concept was nowhere near a match for Mercedes. Through '15 and '16 his team made great strides, and in '17 and '18 the engine was a match for Mercedes. So, a job very well done.

"In the middle of 2016 there was a major reshuffle on the chassis side and he became the chief technical officer. This made him responsible for both the chassis and engine, so he was a true technical director - or perhaps a better description is technical manager.

"He is reputedly a very good motivator and gets the best from his people. In some ways that makes him ideal as team principal but one person can only do so much, and this is a very different role from the technical ones Binotto has occupied since joining Ferrari over 20 years ago.

Ferrari's car can be good - the team just needs to get on top of its reliability and find a way to perform consistently

"The reasons for this being the wrong decision are fairly simple. Why take your best technical asset and stick them in a position that will reduce their impact in this area?

"Yes, there are other very capable people heading up the various technical areas within the team, but the changes in how they work will cause some disruption while everyone gets up to speed with their new responsibilities. And all this when optimisation of the technical regulation changes for 2019 will be crucial to performance."

Nearly seven months on, I'm just as convinced about the disruptiveness of that change.

Leading into qualifying at Hockenheim, Ferrari looked like it could lock out the front row and, at the minimum, have one car up there. But no, the chaos at the team meant that Ferrari managed to throw it all away and in the end its cars qualified 10th with Charles Leclerc and 20th with Vettel.

I know I keep going on about reversed-championship-order grids, but Ferrari shouldn't take that responsibility on its shoulders independently!

In Vettel's case, it was a turbo problem that dumped him to the back. I don't really know what the problem was in detail but by the way Ferrari described it I wouldn't be surprised if it was a connection between the turbo and the intake cooling plenum - or between the cooling plenum and the actual engine.

Normally, there is a short section of silicone rubber hose connecting these components and held in place by a fairly simple hose clip. As with everything in F1, it is probably a fairly expensive hose clip but expensive or not they can break and when they do you lose the turbo pressure and with it probably something like 200bhp.

As for Leclerc, it was a fuel pressure problem. The mechanics were working on something in the lower part of the driver's right hand side of the car, I don't really have any idea what that was but Ferrari explained the issue as a problem with the control module related to the fuel system.

It is sufficient to say that Ferrari should not be having these problems. Every time something goes wrong, Ferrari keeps saying 'we have not had this problem before' but that's not good enough.

There are two other, in effect, small teams running Ferrari power units - so that's four other cars and none of these cars suffered any problems in these areas. Perhaps if Ferrari had its budget halved, which would put it in financially the same situation of these partner teams, it too would be able to eliminate some of the disastrous finger problems. Sometimes more is not better.

But to be more positive, looking at the cars on track, the Ferrari looked really very well balanced. Everyone keeps on about how good the engine is and how fast the cars are down the straights, but as I keep saying that's the set-up compromise that every team must come up with.

Ferrari didn't bring much in the way of developments to Hockenheim, but sometimes that can be the right thing to do. Sometimes it is better to get the best from what you have rather than adding something new that you do not have time to optimise.

So, the car can be good. Ferrari just needs to get on top of its reliability and find a way to perform consistently.

Mercedes, on the other hand, brought lots of new bits to its home race. Rumour had it that the team had found something like half a second, but, gladly, I didn't see any evidence of that it.

The car looks very stiff and when the DRS is open and the front wing is that little bit lower to the ground it induces a fairly high frequency of porpoising as it suffers front wing airflow separation. It looks like the drivers really have to hang on, but if they can do that the time is in there.

One of the changes Mercedes introduced was a reduced chord length on the outboard end of the front wing trailing flap. With this, Mercedes is also moving closer to what Ferrari has with its flap arrangement. As can be seen in the image below, the yellow lines denote the difference in height between the endplate and wing elements on the Melbourne-spec wing, while the red line shows the reduced height of the wing used at Silverstone.

I'm pretty sure the compromise on this set of regulations lies somewhere between what Ferrari and Mercedes are currently running, so it will be interesting to see as the season progresses which team goes in which direction.

One other thing that it's important to tackle is this stupid trend for wheeling cooling.

Perhaps it's now time to ban tyre blankets and rim cooling for 2020

Pirelli defines the maximum tyre blanket temperatures and the minimum tyre pressures that can be used at each race. At Hockenheim, it was fronts at 100C and 23.5 Psi and for the rears 80C and 19.5 Psi.

These temperatures and pressures are the maximum and minimum allowable when the blankets are taken off in the garage, theoretically, just before the car drives out onto the track. But, and as you would expect, the teams have been getting clever and taking the blankets off well before the cars leave the garage.

This is to allow the pressure to drop to a reasonable level. Ideally, you would like pressures to be around 19/20 psi front and 16/17 psi rear, but while the pressure is dropping so does the tyre temperature. Out on the circuit the temperature will increase and so will the pressure.

It also takes a bit of planning and if you want to follow another car to potentially get a tow, the time required for the tyre tactics might not allow that to happen. So teams are getting even more clever.

They now take the blankets off and then cool down the rims with fans packed with dry ice that fit snugly into the wheels. This leaves more of the temperature in the tyre tread, but cooling down the rims cools the air inside the tyre void and reduces the pressures.

Currently, this is achieved as separate entities but it won't be long before it becomes an automated system with the blankets heating the tread, cooling fans cooling the rims and basically a control system monitoring and optimising the complete process.

Perhaps it's now time to ban tyre blankets and rim cooling for 2020. Yes, warm-up would be much more difficult with more driver errors, which would be fantastic, but it would be the same for everyone. Otherwise, while complaining about the costs, the teams are spending more millions on new heating and cooling systems.

As far as last weekend's race was concerned, there were a few drivers and teams that deserved a positive mention. Max Verstappen for his 'spin and win', but mainly for keeping his head when all around him were losing theirs.

Vettel's drive was, in reality, what we expect from the top guys, but behind them came Daniil Kvyat and Lance Stroll. Toro Rosso and Racing Point showed that if you give them adverse conditions and a few decision to make, the small teams can outwit the big boys.

Alex Albon really deserves a pat on the back. To run as competitively as he did from lap one in conditions that he had never driven an F1 car in before and stay on the black stuff just shows he is a talent for the future. He will be disappointed with sixth but he showed his true potential in the race.

We shouldn't let the weekend get away without congratulating Honda. First, third and sixth is a great result for it and deservedly so. Honda has worked very hard and took a huge amount of flack, but kept its head down and is now reaping the reward for that effort. Hats off to everyone involved.

It's on to Hungary next - a slow speed track and with what we have seen so far this year in slow corners it should suit Mercedes. But it should be very hot, which could suit Ferrari and Red Bull. Honda is showing it is now able to mix it with Mercedes and Ferrari, so three teams fighting at the front is just what we want to see - bring it on.

As an aside, given I mentioned reversed grids, well done to W Series for taking the bull by the horns and running a non-points race the weekend before the German GP with exactly that format.

The driver on pole, Megan Gilkes, who had zero championship points, hung on to win, with Alice Powell, who was fourth in the championship - and in turn 17th on the grid - going on to finish second. That kind of excitement is something for F1 to think about.