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The dawn of the 21st century saw Scuderia Ferrari emerge as the dominant force in F1, taking six consecutive constructors' titles and five consecutive drivers’ titles between 1999 and 2004.
Arguably the greatest era in the Scuderia’s long history in F1, the period witnessed the team set new standards for reliability in the sport. Their attention to detail and innovative procedures provided a solid foundation for sustained dominance.
Since their last constructors’ title in 2008, however, the team has gone through a dramatic shift, with almost every personnel who contributed to their early century dominance having departed the team.
Nowadays, Ferrari’s reliability is far from bulletproof. In the last decade alone, the Scuderia has lost multiple championships due to woefully unreliable cars. In this piece, we look at three such prominent instances.
2019: Unreliability prevents Ferrari from taking an early lead
Ferrari started the 2019 season with a lot of optimism despite their disappointment from the previous season. Their brand-new power unit proved to be mighty quick, worrying the competition.
In his debut race for the Scuderia, fresh-faced Charles Leclerc was on course to take his maiden F1 win and notch an early lead in the championship, only for his engine to fail in the closing stages of the race.
A catastrophic qualifying session later in the season during the German GP yet again hampered the Scuderia’s progress, having somewhat clawed back their deficit to Mercedes until then.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel’s retirement from the lead in the race in Russia after an electrical failure once again ruined an easy 1-2 finish for the team.
While Ferrari’s failure to win the championship in 2019 was down to multiple other factors such as poor strategy and reliability, it certainly played a crucial part, especially in the early stages of the season.
2017: Unlucky failures snatch away a shot at the title
For the first time in the turbo-hybrid era, Ferrari fared significantly better during the 2017 season with the fast and mostly reliable SF70H. Throughout the first half of the season, Sebastian Vettel seemed on course to end the Scuderia’s championship drought and add to his tally of four world titles.
Luck played against Ferrari and Vettel, however, ruining their chances at the title. Having led for much of the season, Vettel endured two DNFs in Singapore and Malaysia, which proved to be crucial in the championship battle.
Vettel’s non-scoring allowed Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton to take the championship lead, forcing the German to finish with just 50 points or two race wins worth of points behind his title rival.
2010: Unreliability robs Fernando Alonso of a much-deserved third title
A frustrated Fernando Alonso struggling to overtake a much slower Renault of Vitaly Petrov in his Ferrari F10 in the 2010 season final in Abu Dhabi while his main championship rival Sebastian Vettel cruised to take victory was probably one of the most infamous moments in the Scuderia’s history.
That season, Alonso came agonizingly close to winning the championship, only to be denied at the last possible minute due to various factors, including poor strategic choices from the team.
The main reason behind Alonso’s predicament, however, was due to a series of power unit failures that the team endured earlier that season. Having exhausted its allocated number of power units, the team was forced to take grid penalties to take any fresh units.
Heading into the final few rounds, however, the team was loathe to do so, given the high risks involved.
Hence, Alonso was stuck with an old power unit that was past its prime in the most important race of the season and was unable to score enough points to clinch the championship.
The Spaniard ultimately missed out on a third world title by just four points and finished second behind Sebastian Vettel.
