Palmer indicates what Ferrari must do to have a chance at the title

Jolyon Palmer has identified a key area that he believes Ferrari need to focus on if they are to keep themselves in the title battle going forward, with the squad still mathematically the closest challengers to Kimi Antonelli and Mercedes.

Antonelli continues to lead the drivers’ standings by 50 points from Lewis Hamilton, while the Silver Arrows hold an advantage of 72 points over the Scuderia in the Teams’ Championship.

Despite Antonelli and Mercedes losing some points during recent rounds prior to the summer break – the Italian having suffered a mechanically-related DNF in Barcelona, as well as dropping out of the top 10 at Silverstone following an issue with a front wheel shield – Palmer suggested during the latest episode of the official podcast, F1 Nation, that Ferrari have not made the most of these gains.

As such, the former F1 driver believes that the team need to cut out any further “sloppy” errors in future.

“There is the unknown of what Kimi does when he gets towards a title fight,” Palmer explained. “Ferrari have to just keep the pressure on and see what happens.

“I'm a little bit disappointed in them in recent races, because I think they've just been given this chance with some reliability woes for Kimi. The wheel cover stuff in Silverstone was a really lucky strike for Ferrari.

“They [were] going to lose that race and they ended up coming through, taking a big dent out of out of Kimi's lead [with a win for Charles Leclerc].

“And then they go and get all these penalties. So you've got a jump start for Lewis at Silverstone just because he moved his hand too quick – that's pretty sloppy.

“You've got him unlatching the pit lane speed limiter a fraction early in Hungary – it's hard to argue that's not pretty sloppy.

“You've got the bigger one of all of them actually probably being the impeding penalty in Hungary – my word, that's so sloppy from the race engineer at that point, and maybe a little bit from Lewis as well.

“And those three penalties may cost them not just some points, obviously, but a little bit of momentum and a little bit of that pressure on Kimi, so they have to cut those out.”

IndyCar race winner and analyst James Hinchcliffe agreed that Ferrari will need to be on their A-game in order to stay in the fight.

“We don't know how Kimi is going to react when it really gets down to crunch time,” Hinchcliffe said. “If that 50-point buffer does start coming down for some reason, does he start to panic?

“Does he start to drive in a protective manner and does that create opportunities? It is possible. But, I think Ferrari have to be flawless from here on out if they've got a realistic shot at it.”

Ferrari’s prospects in the championship fight was just one of the talking points on the Dutch Grand Prix preview, in which Palmer and Hinchcliffe joined F1 Nation host Tom Clarkson.

To hear the full episode, hit go on the audio player above or click here to listen to the latest episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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