Ted Kravitz thinks Ferrari could be about to make a ‘big call’ that was previously ‘a bit of a disaster’

Ferrari are desperately searching for answers as they try to work out why the 2025 Formula 1 season has been so underwhelming.

Team principal Fred Vasseur oversaw Ferrari missing out on the constructors’ championship by just 14 points last season.

Even the most optimistic Ferrari fan would have ruled out the team ending their 17-year wait for a championship, while Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc are both already out of contention in the individual standings.

Ferrari now need to find both short-term and long-term solutions for why they’ve not won a title since 2008.

In the short term, Ferrari are working on an improvement to their rear suspension to help fix some of the issues Hamilton and Leclerc are facing with how high their car is currently being run.

After Hamilton’s disqualification in China, Ferrari have been more conservative in their set-up, which is ultimately costing them time.

Nico Rosberg has heard rumours that Ferrari are exploring opening a UK base to help attract the best staff to work for them.

Sky Sports reporter Ted Kravitz has reacted to the news and recalled why the last time Ferrari tried this, it didn’t work.

READ MORE: All you need to know about Scuderia Ferrari from team principal to factory

Ted Kravitz says Ferrari’s previous UK base was ‘a bit of a disaster’

Kravitz was speaking on The F1 Show about Ferrari’s work away from the track amid a tricky campaign.

He explained: “I can understand two things on Ferrari.

“First of all, Toro Rosso, whatever they’re called these days, Racing Bulls, they’re setting up a design and development and mechanics base in Red Bull Technology in the UK.

“They’re based in Italy, but they’re setting it up in the UK. So that will be a good test case as to whether it can work, with remote working is much easier.

“But where Ferrari tried this back in the late 1980s and 1990s was with Ferrari Design and Development in Guildford under John Barnard.

“And because they didn’t have the technology of being able to work remotely the way that we have now, it was a bit of a disaster.

“That’s why maybe some people with long memories of thinking that maybe it’s not great to split a sort of UK-based part of Ferrari.

“But there’s no reason, as Nico [Rosberg] says now, with the way modern communications are, that it couldn’t work, but that would be sort of a big call for them to do.”

READ MORE: Who is Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur? Everything you need to know

What went wrong at Ferrari’s Design and Development base in the United Kingdom?

Ferrari signed legendary designer John Barnard in 1992 under the proviso that he would continue to work from the UK.

This meant that Ferrari set up an office known as Ferrari’s Design and Development facility just outside Guildford in Surrey.

Although Ferrari continued to update the facility, after five years, they eventually sold it to Barnard in 1997 for £900,000, via Grand Prix, with the suggestion that he then immediately sold it on to the Arrows F1 team.

As Kravitz suggested, communication between Ferrari’s Italian and UK bases proved difficult.

Jean Todt decided to move all operations back to Italy, although the final car Barnard designed from the FDD nearly won Michael Schumacher his third drivers’ championship.

Speaking about what went wrong with the FDD in an interview with Motorsport Magazine, Barnard said: “Nobody ever seemed to appreciate what it took to run a factory.

“I’d present realistic budgets and Ferrari would always be looking to cut 15 per cent, which I told them wasn’t feasible.

“Then, when it became clear that Michael Schumacher was joining for 1996, Jean was telling me to buy whatever equipment I needed ‘because Schumacher was coming’.

“I pointed out that we should have done that three years earlier, so that we’d have been fully ready when he arrived… That kind of thing really annoyed me.”