(upbeat music) - Ferrari sucks this year. So what happened? - [Announcer] Out of the
race, Sebastian Vettel. As Charles LeClerc does now become the first retirement from this race. - And all the question
marks will point back to the technical directives. - This is Sebastian Vettel and this is Ferrari's SF718 Formula 1 car. At this moment, it's
halfway through the season. Sebastian is first in the
driver's championship, and Ferrari is first in the
constructors championship. Within the next three seconds
though, all of that changes. - [Announcer] A massive disappointment for the championship leader. - This would be the last
time Ferrari was on top. Exactly two years from that day, Ferrari went from first
in the standings to fifth. If you don't watch F1, that really sucks. There's only 10 teams,
and the rankings change more gradually than other sports. But we can't pin Ferrari's fall from grace on a single crash or even a single race. What's happening inside Ferrari? Why has the season been
an absolute dumpster fire? With lots of help from
my F1-obsessed friends. - It's crazy how things
went so wrong so quickly. - It's, it's not good. It's not a good situation. - It is nothing short of depressing. - We're gonna find out. - Thanks to WheelHouse for
sponsoring this episode of Keeps. - [Man] Do thanks to Keeps- (all laughing) - Sorry, take two. Thanks to Keeps for sponsoring
this episode of WheelHouse. (upbeat music) - Hey Uncle Jerry. - Nolan. - Oh, my God, what happened to your head? - What, this old thing? I didn't listen to my
own advice and use Keeps. So now I sit here in my
rocking chair all day, and nostalge about the good old days when I had thick full luscious hair as thick as those legs,
give me those legs. (Nolan screaming) - You know, losing my hair is a real fear because I know that two out of three men will experience some sort
of male pattern baldness by the time they're 35. I know a lot of you watching
this don't want to make that awkward trek through the pharmacy or to the doctor's office
to get hair loss medication. But lucky for you, Keeps makes it easy. They let you see a doctor online, and they send you hair loss medication directly to your door, every three months. Time is ticking, though,
because hair loss treatments take about four to six months before you start seeing results. So what are you waiting for? Click the link in the description below or go to keeps.com/wheelhouse50 that's K-E-E-P-S.com/wheelhouse50 for 50% off your first order. - Come on, Nolan, come with me. I got to stories to tell. - To understand why
Ferrari are failing now, we have to go back to a time when a major sea change happened in F1. In 2014 the sanctioning
body of Formula 1, the FIA, mandated that every team
use a turbocharged V6 engine from that season onward. And no one adopted better
to this new regulation than Mercedes AMG Petronas. Since then, the German outfit has won every constructor's championship, the season long battle between each team. And their lead driver Lewis Hamilton has won nearly every
driver's championship, the season long battle
between each driver. The only two teams that have
threatened Merc's dominance in the current V6 era
are Red Bull and Ferrari. So we charted all three
of those teams points over the last three seasons. This is Germany, where
that crash happened. And this is where Ferrari stands today. Mercedes has amplified their dominance, and Red Bull has now surpassed
the Italian stallions. During any decline, blame can be directed towards some combination of the drivers, the team management,
and of course the car. So let's go through those one by one and figure out which
is the biggest culprit. (cool jazz music) Now a lot of blame for Ferrari's decline has been directed
towards Sebastian Vettel, usually in one of two ways. If you're not a Seb fan, it's
because he's lost his touch, he sucks and should retire. If you are a Seb fan, of
course he's having a bad 2020. Ferrari announced he wouldn't
be driving for the team next year before the season even began. Do I think that a four
time world champ sucks or would possibly sabotage an
entire season out of revenge? No, come on. But I will concede that Seb's confidence was very likely smashed to
pieces after Germany 2018. The yips are real. - You got to remember that 2018, Vettel could have won that,
could have won the title. And it was that mistake
in Germany at Hockenheim. - This is Tom McKluskey, AKA TomoF1. He has a great F1 YouTube channel. - That seemed to be like the epicenter of where things started to go wrong. And then once that happened, just these mistakes
just started creeping in more and more often. He seemed to lose confidence in the car. - [Nolan] But let's imagine for a minute that Sebastian was doing
just as well as his teammate, Charles LeClerc, this season. Charles has 49 points, so that's 49 each, which makes 98 points. That puts them fourth. Just six points ahead of Racing Point and 227 behind Mercedes. - Charles, we know, is different gravy. We know he's quality and
he's struggling as well. And there's no smoke without fire. There's definitely a significant issue at the heart of that Ferrari team. - Starting to think that
drivers aren't the problem here. So that leads us up the chain. (energetic cool music) Before the 2019 season Ferrari promoted then chief technical
director Mattia Binotto to team principal. And according to some Ferrari fans, Mattia is the one to blame
for the shortcomings of 2019. And the absolute failure of 2020. The team principal is like the person running the entire show. - So he was, he was Rubens
Barrichello's race engineer for a while back in the day. He was part of the team throughout the Schumacher dominance. He's been a fundamental
part of that Ferrari team for a very long time
on the technical side. - To me, it seems like having
a background in racing, especially on the team you've
been a part of for so long, like Binotto, would be a natural advantage to knowing how to lead said team. But that's not necessarily the case. - Being good at the
technical side of things does not guarantee success
as a team principal. There's various examples around the grid of leaders who aren't
necessarily technical people but just know how to move and how to prioritize and how to create and build a team that
is gonna be successful. And I feel like Mattia should be focused on the technical side of things. And they need to get a leader in elsewhere who's actually gonna delegate
properly, if you ask me. - Ultimately, if a team is failing that means the team principal is failing. They choose the drivers. They choose the direction
to take the engineering. Everything is basically
under their control. However, one of the few
things they can't control are FIA regulations. A quick change in the rules can swiftly wipe out a technological advantage that was keeping one
team ahead of the other. And that seems to be the
exact case with Ferrari. (energetic upbeat music) During the 2018 and '19 seasons Ferrari had one of the
strongest engines on the grid. The car was extremely
fast on the straights and that helped the drivers
grab all those podiums. But in preseason testing of this year, Ferrari was seriously
off pace, just like bad. So what happened between their decent 2019 season and testing? Back in 2018, right
around the time Ferrari were putting up a fight against Mercedes, The FIA began monitoring Ferrari's
cars a little bit closer. The Ferrari straight line
speed couldn't be matched. - The Ferrari straight line speed, really like they've
always had that advantage. - That's my buddy and fellow
YouTuber CrankyYankeeF1. - But it got significant at Monza and Spa. - And everyone was getting
a little suspicious. How were they so fast in the straights? Teams are given a maximum fuel flow rate that they have to abide by. And that's what the FIA was looking at. But what if Ferrari could fool the FIA by fooling their sensors? - There are fuel fuel flow restrictions and the higher fuel flow, it just loosely, better performance. Give me some rope. If as long as they're good
in the detection time zones. 'Cause they like if they
can figure out when that is all the other times they can
slowly drip extra fuel flow. - If you could figure out the interval at which the anti-cheat
sensors sensed the fuel, then exceed the fuel flow rate when the sensor wasn't looking, they can make a little
bit more power, baby. So Red Bull suspected
Ferrari was using this method to cheat the sensors,
but didn't have proof. So instead of outright accusing Ferrari, Red Bull filed an inquiry with the FIA. - What Red Bull did was
really smart is they said, tell us if this is legal. So now anyone doing it, they've
set a new precedent to say that's legal or illegal. - It's basically like saying, "Hey, we figured out this really cool way "of cheating your sensors in this way. "Is this cheating?" According to racefans.net
Ferrari denied allegations last year that they
modified their power unit in response to the FIA's new
guidelines on fuel flow rate, but not everyone agrees. - The technical directive came. And then a couple races later their pace was dropping precipitously. - There's no way that it's a coincidence that this ruling's come in, and then Ferrari have gone
from arguably the fastest car, definitely in terms of a straight line, to now the eighth fastest car. - But the biggest development
in the story so far was the FIA's announcement
at the beginning of the 2020 season that said quote, "After a thorough
technical investigations, "it has concluded its
analysis of the operation "of the Scuderia Ferrari
Formula 1 power unit "and reached a settlement with the team. "The specifics of the agreement "will remain between the parties." In simpler terms, yeah,
Ferrari was doing something. No, we're not gonna tell you what. - It's dodgy. Don't get me wrong, you
know, all the Formula 1 teams were questioning why it
was a sealed envelope, why whatever agreement, you know, the FIA and Ferrari came to was
not disclosed to the public. - This is Matt Gallagher. He's an OG in the F1
social media YouTube game. - Clearly it was something
that would be deemed that Ferrari weren't playing
by the rules last year. - The lack of transparency
has wound up a lot of people. And Ferrari are claiming, Oh, it's to protect their
intellectual property. Well, I'm sorry Mattia,
but clearly that IP isn't really worth much, mate. - Not only that guys, Ferrari
also agreed to help the FIA, quote "In other regulatory
duties in formula 1 "and in its research activities "on carbon emissions
and sustainable fuels." Translation, we'll help
you find out if other teams are doing the same thing. - Yeah, that's how they'll
spin it, is that they helped even though
- Yeah. - They definitely cheated last year. - If we look back at our graph, here is where Red Bull presented
their inquiry to the FIA. Here's where the FIA sent
out the technical directives related to fuel consumption. And then this past off season is where the final
regulations were put in place. There definitely seems to be
some sort of relationship. Now the theory goes with
the straight line speed gone and a chassis that doesn't have the aero to be fast in the corners, Ferrari's left with a total dud of a car. - Whatever they were doing
in 2019, cheat or not, whatever, they don't
have the power advantage. They don't have the straight line speed. And in all honesty, they don't
have the slow turn advantage. They don't have the medium
speed turn advantage. They don't have the down force advantage. They don't have anything. - When I look at the
management, the drivers, and the car's performance
over the past few years, these new regulations, which seem to be aimed
directly at Ferrari, really appear to have had the
biggest impact on the team. So the question remains, what can Ferrari fans
expect in the future? Well, in the short term,
no huge improvements. Because of COVID, the teams are limited in the changes they can make to the car between this season and 2021. They also have to contend with a new, $145 million budget cap coming into play. And because of that, it's likely Ferrari won't be putting a ton of money into developing next year's car. - They're probably just going, "2021, let's just throw that away. "Let's go to 2022." So, but after that, that's when they have to
get their act together. If they don't in 2022, I don't know, it's gonna be pretty, be pretty bad for them, I think. - Now, I want to leave Ferrari
fans with a glimmer of hope. Believe it or not, this isn't even Ferrari's
worst year so far. In 1980 Ferrari finished 10th, scoring just eight points overall. They've been in this position before. - When Schumacher joined Ferrari, they weren't a world
championship winning team then, far from it. So when he went, you know, he built the team from the ground up and then they went to winning ways. You know, just because
they're going through this tough time, doesn't mean that that's going to be like that forever. - I look at what, how they've recovered from so many situations that I... There's a reason why the only team that's been here since the start. - They'll figure it out. They just need to figure it out. So what do you think the problem is? Seb, Mattia, the new regulations? Let me know in the comments. I want to give a huge thank you to all the creators who
helped me with this video, Tom McKluskey, AKA TomoF1. Please check out his channel. He's got a really cool style over there. And check out his podcast,
the Cool-Down podcast. I was on it. Check out CrankyYankeeF1. He just put out a monster video
on Ferrari's worst seasons. A lot more numbers in
that one in this video. Go follow Matt Gallagher on Twitter. He's always posting those dank memes. And check out all the WTF1 content. Those guys are awesome. And I hope to meet all these
people in person very soon. Maybe we can join forces
at a race or something. And if anyone at Ferrari is watching this. just stick with it. Be kind, I'll see you next time.
