The lost horse

Posted on by Dushyant Wadivkar

I am not sure if it is charming or disturbing that I have been a staunch ‘tifosi’ for decades now. Growing up with Michael Schumacher, I couldn’t have possibly liked anyone else. Seeing him win championship after championship against tough competition, in the rain, from the back, with terrible Bridgestone tires and with relentless pursuit of qualifying laps driving magic, I relished so many Sundays. He was my everything and the team he raced for grabbed a special place in my heart. Formula 1 cars were defacto red, the prancing horse was the ubiquitous logo and the German/Italian national anthems on the podium were tones that etched deep into my heart. I was, because of Michael, a true tifosi. And so even after his retirement, I stayed on as a Scuderia Ferrari(SF) fan. In 2007, Kimi’s victory by a point was a nice surprise. Little did I realize how paramount that would be in the years to come.

After 2007, the team has had multiple championship-winner drivers in their car. When Alonso drove for Ferrari, SF kept handing him a sub-par car and an incompetent race management team. By the time Vettel came along, the car had improved. However, the older Vettel kept cracking under pressure and couldn’t really win in a non dominant car. The team principal Maurizo Arrivabene kept getting more Italian in his fist pumps and post race interviews but his team’s race craft compared poorly to Mercedes. It became apparent that we as Ferrari hadn’t won for so long that we didn’t know how, even if we had a very competitive car and high profile drivers.

2018 was a good year as any to live through the season of a Ferrari fan in recent times. It began with hope in the spring, anxiety in the summer and ended up with inevitability and the anti-climatic nature of defeat in the fall. And all of it was succinctly documented in my post race tweets. I wanted to summarize them here, recount the pain and finally exhale the weight I that I carried the whole season. If you are fellow tifosi, I can only feel your pain but we should have known better.

1.   At first, there was doubt. It was an unconvincing victory but an embattled lover like me accepted it thankfully.

2. In Bedouin lights, there was a glimmer of hope.

3. Was Spain an anomaly or a harbinger of sorts?

4. We barely survived Canada. I was refusing to believe in either outcomes. Do we go all the way or do we stumble like it is habit?

5. The first cracks. As a seasoned and hardened tifosi, I knew that this was the beginning of the end. Even if I did not want to believe it.

6. The mid-summer decoy of hope.

7. The lowest of lows. We went from Vettel winning his home grandprix to losing the championship due to one unforced error. I knew then that this was finally over.

8. Winning at SPA was probably the highlight of this season, even though it was a bit too late.

9. Anger, because I did not how else to handle the crumbling of season.

10. Great track, terrible team strategy and a painful result was in store at Japan. And then the team principal spoke to justify his nuttiness.

11. Now at the the last stage of grief, I find peace in acceptance of a better driver, better team and perhaps the one of the best formula one car of its time.

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