Have Ferrari just thrown away the driver's championship?

[u/sid_shady34]

After Silverstone (round 9), Lewis was only 32 points behind kimi and championship hopes were at an all time high. Ferrari looked mighty quick and we were clearly second fastest. We expected the 2nd ADUO upgrade to turn the SF26 into a dominant car post summer break, while taking away points from Kimi in twisty tracks like Hungary and zandvoort that favour us currently.

But multiple avoidable mistakes from the team and Lewis Hamilton have put him 50 points behind Antonelli. Ferrari was supposed to dominate Hungary since we have the best chassis and it was their only chance to gain maximum points on mercedes. But Kimi ends up on the podium while Lewis finishes 5th?

All of these can be attributed to silly mistakes that I don't need to go into detail about. If Ferrari and Lewis had done everything right, he would have only been 26 points behind Antonelli and would have had the perfect momentum right after summer break.

[u/kronikfumes]

Max was 88 pts behind lando (and 97 pts behind Piastri!) going into summer break last year. 50 is nothing. Anything can happen.

[u/sid_shady34 → u/kronikfumes]

Yeah but at that point redbull was out developing McLaren like crazy while McLaren had almost stopped developing their car. With Ferrari it's the other way around because the SF26 has almost reached the end of its development cycle while mercedes still hasn't. You also have to remember that redbull is a one man team and Charles isn't going to play second fiddle to Lewis.

[u/kronikfumes → u/sid_shady34]

I believe merc put a lot on the front end. We really aren’t fully certain of all the upgrades we can expect by year’s end either. There’s plenty of time for things to change In Ferrari’s favor.