Have Ferrari ever had a worse start to the season?

Before the 2023 Formula 1 season started, there were high expectations for Ferrari. Last season the Scuderia di Maranello had fought with Red Bull for the title until mid-season, and for this year, an improvement was even expected. Nothing could have been more wrong. Ferrari has only picked up 26 points so far, making it one of their worst starts to the season.

How many years has it been since Ferrari started the year so badly? Have there been times when they have done even worse? This is Ferrari's worst start to a season since the beginning of the turbo-hybrid era, and to find a worse start you have to go all the way back to 2009. So let's look at what were the Prancing Horse's worst starts to a season before this in the last 50 years.

2020

2020 was perhaps the worst season of Ferrari's 'modern' era. In a year heavily marked by Covid, they finished sixth in the constructors' championship, while among the drivers, Leclerc and Vettel came eighth and 13th. In the first three races, Ferrari scored more points than this year.

The extra point was only one (27 to 26), but in the first Grand Prix in Austria, Leclerc finished on the podium, which has not yet happened to Ferrari this year. The second race, also on the same circuit, ended with a double retirement, while the third in Hungary ended with a sixth place for Vettel (after tenth in the first race) and Leclerc out of the points.

2009

The 2009 season, as we have said, is the one with the worst start. Ferrari had won the Constructors' Championship the previous year but were unprepared for the change in regulations. In the first three races, they scored zero points. Under the current scoring system, it would still only have been three.

A double retirement in Australia, followed by ninth and 14th places in Malaysia. Tenth and a retirement in China gave Massa and Raikkonen a nightmare start to the season. Ferrari then recovered over the course of the season, coming close to third in the Constructors' championship despite the serious accident suffered in Hungary by Massa, who was replaced first by Badoer and then by Fisichella.

2005

In 2005 Ferrari were at the peak of their dominant era, and Schumacher had won the previous five world championships. However, the German and his teammate Barrichello collected only 10 points in the first three races, 26 under the current system.

This was also due to the two retirements suffered by Schumacher and the one suffered by Barrichello. Ferrari failed to bring both cars to the finish line in any of the season's first five races. As a result, the Italian team finished third among the constructors, winning only the US GP, in which only six cars took part.

1992-1993

In the early 1990s, Ferrari had two consecutive years in which they started even worse than this year. In 1992 the Reds did not finish the first two races, only to finish fourth and fifth in Brazil at the third race. In that season, Ferrari did not win any races and in general, the drivers finished very few races: six GPs for Alesi, four for Capelli and two for Larini.

The following year Alesi remained at Ferrari, being joined by Berger. The two retired twice each in the first three races, also taking a sixth and an eighth place. 1993 also ended without victories for Ferrari, who finished fourth in the championship, far behind the top three.

1986

In 1986 in the first three races, Ferrari managed to record an incredible number of five retirements. Alboreto did not finish any race, while Johansson finished fourth at San Marino. The Scuderia di Maranello would have had 12 points with today's points system.

Also, the victories were zero that season, and Ferrari finished fourth among the constructors. The final result was also the same the following year, but the Prancing Horse got a better start and took two victories.

1980-1981-1982

How many Ferraris crossed the finish line in the first three races of these three seasons? Three. Of which one was later disqualified. In 1980 and 1981, there were only retirements for the Reds in the season's first three races. Villeneuve, Scheckter, and Pironi never managed to finish a race. In 1982 Pironi finished 18th in South Africa and sixth in Brazil, while in the USA, Villeneuve was taken off the podium because of a non-compliant wing.

In 1980 Ferrari ended the season in tenth place, without a podium, behind Fittipaldi and Arrows. While in 1981, they finished fifth thanks also to two victories by Villeneuve. Ferrari won the Constructors' Championship in the third of these bad years, but it was the disastrous season of Gilles Villeneuve's death and Didier Pironi's serious injury.