How McLaren's past pain is a reality check for Ferrari

Whether you think the Ferrari Formula 1 team is in a crisis or the middle of a storm after the Belgian Grand Prix probably depends on whether or not you wear a red shirt with a prancing horse on the chest.

But, if we want to put some proper context in terms of what we saw from the Maranello cars last weekend, the history books give us a pretty good indication of just how big a hole the team found itself in Spa.

PLUS: The Spa times that show how much Ferrari has lost in a year

With Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel lining up 13th and 14th after qualifying, it was the team's worst grid position since the 2015 United States GP.

Back then, Vettel started 13th and Kimi Raikkonen in 18th: but those lowly positions were due to engine change penalties. If we take away such grid penalty anomalies, and ignore the Saturday afternoons where rain played a part and the team stumbled through strategy errors, then we have to go back to Singapore 2009 for a worse result. On that occasion, Raikkonen started 13th and Giancarlo Fisichella 18th.

However, it must be noted that result was hampered by Fisichella being a late stand-in, and never really getting on top of the characteristics of the team's Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) that year.

So if we want to go back to a time when Ferrari went into a race with its regular drivers, and was simply as uncompetitive as it was in Belgium, then we are talking about the mid 1980s.

At the 1986 British Grand Prix, Michele Alboreto qualified 12th with Stefan Johansson down in 18th. To find a race where both cars were lower than where Leclerc/Vettel started at Spa, we are talking about the 1985 Dutch GP - where Alboreto (below) was 16th and Johansson 17th.

That incredible historic context has left few in doubt that the Maranello outfit is facing a Herculean task if it is to turn its F1 fortunes around in the short term.

Even if the vagaries of the Spa-Francorchamps layout prove to be a one-off in awfulness for Ferrari - with the contrasting characteristics of sectors one/three and sector two punishing the SF1000 - it has exposed how wide scale Ferrari's problems are.

Ross Brawn's comment earlier this week that the 1.3 seconds a lap time loss Ferrari experienced in Belgium compared to last year cannot be explained purely by its drop in engine power was spot on: Ferrari's woes goes much wider than that.

The scenario that Ferrari is facing has some similarities to the one which McLaren endured in 2018, when a change of engine exposed its inherent weaknesses

Indeed, as Ferrari's season has worn on and the reality that some aero updates are not enough to get it back near where it was last year, a bigger picture reality has hit home. Many of the issues it is facing with its aerodynamic approach, its tyre usage and some of its strategy calls are perhaps problems that have been entrenched in the system for a while. It's just that they were hidden by the fact Ferrari was running with an ultra-competitive engine, so these flaws weren't so obvious before.

PLUS: The strategy blunder that sums up Ferrari's crisis

Rivals have been quick to suggest that Ferrari's power advantage may have meant it never really got on top of aerodynamic efficiency or tyre handling as well as other teams. Extra horsepower meant it could get away with draggy downforce.

As Red Bull's Christian Horner said about the impact on Ferrari of the much-talked about secret engine deal with the FIA: "It's obviously very tough for them, but I think their focus has obviously been in the wrong areas in previous years, which is why they seem to be struggling a little with whatever was in that agreement."

Interestingly, Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto offered a firm hint too that the trouble being seen now is not something new - it was just well disguised before.

"What is happening, in fact, is that we have a car that has lost power, just as all the engine manufacturers have lost it, but we more than the others," he told Italian television.

"Last year the engine partly covered the limits of the machine, but this year it is no longer the case. The limits of the machine are emerging. On that point it is clear that we must improve."

The scenario that Ferrari is facing has some similarities to the one which McLaren endured in 2018, when a change of engine exposed its inherent weaknesses.

Back then, McLaren had come off a fairly bruising time with Honda - where some within the Woking-based organisation were convinced that a lack of power was failing to allow it to deliver the results that it felt its chassis was capable of.

PLUS: How McLaren-Honda was torn apart

On occasion, Fernando Alonso would claim McLaren had the best car, while the team's senior management reckoned it was potentially top three material.

So when the move to the more powerful Renault engine failed to produce a notable lift and push it to the front of the grid, the team quickly realised that perhaps its chassis was not as good as it had previously believed.

PLUS: McLaren's decade of misjudgements

The pain it went through getting to the bottom of what had gone wrong ultimately exposed infrastructure weaknesses - and prompted a far-reaching restructuring of its technical department under Andrea Stella and Pat Fry, before the arrival of Andreas Seidl as team principal.

That period of reflection is paying off now, with McLaren able to deliver podium finishes and potentially locked in a fight with Ferrari for the best-of-the-rest tag behind Mercedes and Red Bull.

Ferrari needs to fully get on top of why its chassis isn't performing as it wanted - and whether or not that can be traced back to fundamental infrastructure or staffing problems

Speaking last year, Stella offered some insight into how methodical the team needed to be to get out of the kind of hole that Ferrari now finds itself in.

"We needed to adjust our processes because the complexity of modern engineering [on an F1 car] requires a very close monitoring, a daily understanding, so from today to tomorrow, have we understood 100%?" explained Stella. "If yes, OK we move on. Otherwise we stop, and we wait until we understand."

Yes, there was short-term hurt - with the team even running experimental upgrades that could never be raced because they would only work up to 250km/h - but it was the only way to get the answers it needed to produce a better car.

"I think they helped us realise that we needed to make changes that were quite fundamental," added Stella (below left, with Seidl).

For Ferrari, it too now must go through that painful process. It needs to fully get on top of why its chassis isn't performing as it wanted - and whether or not that can be traced back to fundamental infrastructure or staffing problems.

As Vettel prepares for his final Ferrari outing at Monza, he painted a picture this week of a team that perhaps does not move together in the same direction - with differences of opinion about where it needs to focus its efforts.

Asked what hadn't worked during his time at Ferrari, he suggested there were many aspects of its operation that were not as ideal as he would have liked.

"It's not a simple question," he said. "Regarding what went wrong I say we never got the package to really fight for the world championship until the very end. But there is not a single reason that determined everything, there are several.

"Do I have any advice for the team? I think so, and I think I have expressed my opinions in recent years. It is probably also true that on some things we do not share the same opinion, but my role is clear: I drive the car and I try to push on development.

"I have always tried to push the team in the direction that I thought was the right one. We had fun together and we had some excellent races, as well as there were more difficult days, where the races were not good. Like all stories there is a beginning and an end, but as I said before I have no hard feelings or regrets, and it is the same impression I get from the team."

Now, just like McLaren had to go through as the reality of its chassis and structural weaknesses were exposed, Ferrari is going to need a lot of time and a hell of a lot of work to steer itself away from the situation it finds itself in right now.