MOTORSPORT: Scarlet fever globally, red faces and rage at home

Red is the colour of the moment in motorsport. A joyous scarlet fever has erupted around the world in the wake of Ferrari breaking its almost-year-long drought in Formula 1 and now returning home to Italy, where this weekend’s grand prix at Monza coincides with the 90th anniversary of the founding of the sport’s most famous team before F1 was even ‘born’ in 1950.

The expectations are huge, but even if the red cars can’t end five years of Mercedes-AMG dominance in the beautiful parklands north of Milan, the tifosi will still unleash the traditional giant banner with the prancing horse emblem over the crowd below the podium.

This year’s celebrations (including the 90th Italian GP, also having begun long before F1) have been branded ’90 Years of Emotion’.

At home there are red faces, with the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport (CAMS) having waved a red flag to halt Formula 4 after five years.

And there are red faces of rage that the 2020 World Rally Championship calendar due in June still has not been announced with the almost-certain loss of Rally Australia to New Zealand.

Peter Whitten, editor of Australia’s RallySport Magazine, has opined that “it’s time for WRC Promoter to lift its game” and that “the ongoing 2020 WRC calendar saga is now beyond a joke”.

Announcements from the world governing body of motorsport, the Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) often come on Friday night/Saturday morning, Australian time, so perhaps confirmation overnight that the November 14-17 event at Coffs Harbour will be the last Rally Oz for now?

There’s always been a lot of dissension in Australian motorsport about the imposition of Formula 4 five years ago, and – particularly among many CAMS members – at that organisation insisting on owning the 20 open-wheeler cars imported for it.

CAMS announced this week that the F4 championship won’t continue next year.

This came just 3½ months after CAMS hived off the running of F4 to the Motorsport Safety and Rescue (MSR) group, with former Nissan Australia boss Richard Emery at the helm.

CAMS chief executive Eugene Arocca said in mid-May – in announcing that handover to MSR, which he called “a logical step” and that “F4 has proven itself as a development category”.

“This agreement will give MSR the opportunity to further build upon the existing foundations and take the category to another level by utilising their networks and resources,” Arocca said.

“CAMS will still be involved in F4, but this new partnership will allow Richard and his team the opportunity to find more drivers and boost the category’s impact and allow CAMS to utilise its resources in other areas.”

Yet this week Arocca conceded that “it is fair to say the category has not lived up to our expectations when it comes to the number of competitors on the grid” – which rarely reached double figures.

“Ultimately, our market was not able to sustain consistently high grid numbers and the inevitable appeal for young Australians to go directly overseas and compete in championships with much higher grid numbers was always an issue.

“We have learnt some important lessons,” Arocca admitted.

“CAMS will announce details around its future development programs in the coming months, following extensive consultation within the industry both locally and overseas.”

Arocca was still relatively new at CAMS when F4 was introduced – president Andrew Papadopoulos had been the chief evangelist for it, intent on being in step with the FIA’s global aspirations for the category. The CEO alone ‘carried the can’ in Wednesday’s admission that it had not succeeded.

Papadopoulos has a couple of years to run as president but will be under increasing heat over what can only be seen as a debacle.

Enzo Ferrari has been dead 21 years and in his last year didn’t go to the track anyway, preferring to have the senior lieutenant in his race team brief him at the end of each GP day.

While he wouldn’t approve of the ‘sewing machine’s sound of the V6 hybrids in F1 now, he certainly would love that the Scuderia’s 2019 car, the SF90, unquestionably has the most powerful engine.

That was always Ferrari’s [the man] priority. Only in the latter years of Il Commendatore’s life did aerodynamics and tyres become such factors.

Fresh from Charles Leclerc’s maiden victory in last Sunday’s Belgian GP at Spa, Ferrari will introduce the ‘Spec 3’ version of its latest power unit this weekend.

The SF90’s straight-line speed already was too much for the Mercedes-AMG W10s at Spa and the advantage could be even more pronounced on Monza’s long straights.

The lead teams of the other power unit makers also will have upgrades and the penalties to be incurred for introducing them, a week later than the customer teams, could shake up the grid for Sunday.

In any case, Ferrari has not regained the consistent discipline and perfection of the Michael Schumacher, Jean Todt, Ross Brawn days and is no certainty to end the Mercedes-AMG domination of Monza, let alone deliver a one-two with new hero Leclerc and the languishing Sebastian Vettel.

“We must do everything to perfection… There will be no room for error,” said Ferrari team principal, Mattia Binotto.

“Our home race is always important, but that is especially true this time.”

Playing the usual mind games, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton (on the way to a sixth world drivers’ title) said: “It’s going to be a happy weekend for Ferrari, most likely”.

“We’ve got to make some drastic improvements to our straight speed somehow,” he said.

“I don’t know if that’s possible – but if anyone can do it, it’s our team.”

Daniel Ricciardo says Monza is “awesome to drive” and considers it one of the highlights of the F1 year.

“If you’re clever on the brakes, you can pull off some good overtakes,” the Renault driver and carsales.com.au global ambassador said.

“I’ve made a few good ones there in the past! If we can repeat our qualifying form [from Spa, where and teammate Nico Hulkenberg were sixth and seventh fastest], hopefully we can be in a position to fight for double-figure points.”

Ricciardo has relatives in Italy who “come out and support” and says the Monza crowd is “always special – the passion is amazing”.

“There’s lots of red flares and chaos everywhere, but it’s quite cool to see everyone going wild,” he said.

“I always look forward to the drivers’ parade in Monza because it’s electric and gets you pumped to go racing.”

But, in what is clearly a shot at Max Verstappen’s army of supporters, he has called for fans to be more respectful when drivers crash.

Verstappen’s orange fans took great delight in Hamilton crashing his Mercedes heavily in final practice at Spa, only a couple of hours before qualifying – and just a day after young Frenchman Anthoine Hubert was killed in a Formula 2 crash there.

“Whether you like someone or not, it is not nice to cheer for someone’s downfall or mistake,” Ricciardo said of the reaction to Hamilton’s misfortune.

“Be a true fan and respect what we do – not only the skill but also the risk,” Ricciardo stated.