Why Ferrari might rue costly errors in Jeddah as the leaders get closer

With the Formula 1 weekend in Saudi Arabia now going ahead as planned, there's the small matter of a race to prepare for. After winning in Bahrain, Ferrari is looking to continue its battle with Red Bull over the victory spoils. But, after both drivers crashed in FP2, the Scuderia has made life difficult for itself in Jeddah

Matt Kew Mar 26, 2022, 9:33 AM

Upd: Mar 26, 2022, 10:33 AM

A major measure of success come the end of this first season of Formula 1’s newest ground-effect era will be the number teams duking it out for the constructors’ crown. If it’s to be two, the status quo will have been upheld after the most recent Mercedes and Red Bull duel. Any advance on that, the radical technical overhaul will have tangibly made the sharp end of the grid more competitive.

The slight problem last time out in Bahrain, however, was that Ferrari had simply replaced Mercedes in the duopoly rather than create a three-way fight for the ages. As the Silver Arrows again struggled with porpoising like in testing, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell slipped into an effective no-man’s land - adrift of the top but ahead of the midfield pack.

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Author Matt Kew

Matt Kew is Autosport’s F1 Editor, a role he has held since March 2022 following stints covering Formula E, Extreme E and the British Touring Car Championship.

Matt joined Autosport in 2018 to work predominantly on the magazine, but his relentless quoting of Alan Partridge meant office colleagues soon thought he would be better-suited to increased field work.

Needless to say, Matt had the last laugh when he won the Motorsport UK Young Journalist of the Year Award in 2019.

His interest in motorsport was sparked by regular trips to watch ASCAR crash around Rockingham’s banked oval.

Matt read politics and philosophy at the University of Sheffield - receiving first-class honours for his dissertation assessing the lack of female participation in top-tier motor racing.

He covered a wide variety of national race and rally meetings for Autosport as a freelancer before joining full-time. His best efforts to argue the merits of historic racing are undone by a questionable taste in music and James Bond actors.