Mattia Binotto feels that Ferrari did not get ‘everything’ wrong at the Monaco GP
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Mattia Binotto
Ferrari had a miserable Monaco weekend. Despite what might seem like a good haul of points in a 2-4 finish, it could not have been more of a disappointment. This is due to the fact that they got completely outwitted on their strategy by Red Bull, and lost what would have been an almost certain 1-2 finish.
They had a similar weekend in Spain. Both of their drivers started on the podium but neither of them finished on it. One might say that despite the fact that they scored more points in Monaco, it was a much more disappointing weekend: The car looked supreme, Leclerc looked supreme, no reliability issues, and everything was under control – until it wasn’t. Two strategic errors and some bad luck with both drivers being stuck behind unlapping cars derailed their race.
Despite this, team principal Mattia Binotto feels that the team deserved praise for their reaction to the delayed start. Binotto said:
“I can only say that as a team we were fully prepared on the grid. We had our extreme-wet tires fitted on the cars on time, so at the time we were in a good position.”
He felt that they had in fact made some right decisions in preparing for the race. It is true that during the wet running the Ferraris had looked insurmountable, especially Charles Leclerc.
“It’s good for the team to show we were organised, that we had some great capacity as well, and sometimes we are taking the right decisions.”
He was perplexed by the decision to delay the start, and he was not alone in that decision as many on the grid felt the same way. In fact, the rain had been rather lukewarm at the scheduled start time but it gradually picked up in intensity.
Also Read: “He’s screwed up enough of his own”: Ralf Schumacher critical of Charles Leclerc
What went wrong?
In a race analysis video released by the team, Ferrari’s sporting and strategy director Inaki Rueda explained that Ferrari had made two main mistakes – The first, underestimating Sergio Perez’s pace, and the second the double-stack pit stop.
Rueda said that the ideal gap between the two cars for the pit stop was 6 seconds, but this shrunk unexpectedly fast, and when they decided to call off Charles Leclerc’s pit stop (as the gap was only around 3 seconds), he had already entered the pits, which cost him valuable seconds during the race.
Binotto explained the decision to double-stack on the pit stop, saying: “We did that at that time because we knew the hard tires were significantly faster and we believed it would have been a good opportunity for us to undercut the Red Bull.”
Sainz had no intentions of pitting for the dry tires, and he did not have to do it as the team changed their minds, telling him to stay out. The reason Sainz was able to retain his position was due to the fact that he only made one pit stop.
Sainz explained the decision to skip the gambles, saying that by the time he was coming in for the intermediates, the race track was getting rapidly closer to dry conditions. As such, he felt that it was best to skip a pit stop.
“I could calculate more or less the way that Perez was catching me and I figured out that by the time he was going to catch me it was going to be time to put the slicks on so I was in the outright lead of the race.”
“I think it was the right call, the right way of thinking, and the right way of approaching such a complicated race.”
In any case, it would seem that Ferrari let both of their drivers down with their strategic calls during the race, especially Charles Leclerc. They cannot afford any more such mistakes during the rest of the season, as these are often the differences between being champions or being runner-ups.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)