The wheels come off at Ferrari
Ferrari had started the season with two wins in the first three races, Charles Leclerc looking absolutely dominant in Bahrain and Australia. They might have been helped a little by the fuel system problems hitting their chief rivals Red Bull, but the 46 points that Leclerc had already built up over Max Verstappen looked like it would take most of the rest of the season for Red Bull to overcome. In fact it took just three races. The change of fortunes began with Leclerc's costly spin out of third place in wet conditions at Imola while chasing Sergio Perez, leaving him finishing in P6.
The pressure was already beginning to mount on Ferrari, and the cracks were starting to appear everywhere you looked. The most notable incident at this early stage was in Monaco when a moment of panic and confusion on the team radio left the team double stacking Leclerc and Carlos Sainz on pit lane. It cost Leclerc what had appeared to be a certain home victory, and he was not happy.
There was more confusion in the British GP, with Ferrari resolving a simmering row about team orders between Leclerc and Sainz by pitting Leclerc and allowing Sainz to take victory. Photographers captured a heated post-race conversation between Leclerc and team boss Mattia Binotto, sparking rumours that one or the would surely be leaving the team at year's end.
After winning in Austria, Leclerc looked to be on course for certain victory in France before he made an unforced error and ended his race in the tyre barrier. In the following race in Hungary, Ferrari made the astounding botched call of putting Leclerc out on the on hard compound tyres for his third stint, which was never going to work. After that the Ferrari pit wall seemed to lose confidence and at Spa they kept asking Leclerc what he wanted to do instead. Throughout, Binotto stuck to his admirable policy of 'no blame', but it made the squad look weak and out of control. And moreover, they were rapidly falling out of title contention.
