Ferrari's dismal weekend at Spa was historically bad
Ferrari's 13-14 finish in the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix was historically bad for the Maranello-based team, there is no different way to describe it. The result was their worst in which both cars finished the race since the 2010 British Grand Prix, but that event was destroyed after contact between Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa and a drive-through penalty for the Spaniard for an illegal overtake on Robert Kubica. This time, it was painfully different for them.
Ferrari followed their 2010 disaster at Silverstone with their controversial 1-2 in Hockenheim and mounting a title challenge with Alonso that ended in the finale at Abu Dhabi, if you would bet on them having such a recovery this year, you might as well use that time on the Twinspires App instead.
This time, the result was completely due to a lack of pace. The last time Ferrari finished with both cars outside the points due to an inferior performance that extended over the entire season, was in the 2009 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
In the 2009 campaign, the same happened in the Malaysian and Singapore GPs, as the team finished outside the top three in the Constructors' Championship for the first time in 16 seasons.
How many times have Ferrari 'achieved' such a torrid result in their glorious history?
To put it in context, before Spa, both Ferraris finishing the race outside the points had occurred only nine times since 1980. In Ferrari's entire World Championship history, their cars finished outside the points in just 18 of the 998 races started by the legendary Italian team, an astonishing 1.80%.
In races in which only one Ferrari car started the event, said car finished outside the points eight times, with the last taking place in the 1982 Canadian Grand Prix, a race which had Didier Pironi as the only Ferrari driver starting for the third race in a row after Gilles Villeneuve's tragic death at Zolder in May.
Out of the 18 times which this disaster occurred for Ferrari, three happened in 1980. That year was Ferrari's worst in history, finishing 10th in the World Constructors' Championship for the first, and so far, only time.
Since 1981, Ferrari has finished at least fifth in the WCC every year, including, of course, 10 Constructors' titles and six World Drivers' Championship in the process.
To add further displeasure to the Tifosi, their own Autodromo Nazionale di Monza might bring bad news for the team and another finish outside the top ten with both cars is possible. Has it happened before? Yes, Ferrari had consecutive races with both cars finishing out of the points and both times it happened to a lineup conformed by race-winning drivers for the team (Carlos Reutemann and Gilles Villeneuve in the Swedish and French rounds of 1978 & Jody Scheckter and Villeneuve in the Austrian and Dutch rounds of 1980).
If the trend continues, we might see Ferrari's worst season since the 80s
This year, the Maranello-based team, managed by Mattia Binotto, is sitting in fifth in the WCC and they might be looking at finishing outside the top four teams for the first time since 1981 when they finished fifth. Though the team has struggled and is expected to suffer at Monza due to their engine being down on power in relation to the rest, the red team is closely fighting for P3 in the WCC.
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