‘For us it was more complicated,’ Mattia Binotto points out where Ferrari lost the development battle against Red Bull
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Ferrari team princial Mattia Binotto
Ferrari started the year on Cloud 9. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finished 1-2 in Bahrain, their first win (& 1-2) since the 2019 Singapore Grand Prix. On the other hand, presumably title rivals (at that stage), Red Bull suffered a double retirement. Max Verstappen won the next race, but then retired again in the next race in Australia. After that race, Ferrari were 49 points ahead of Red Bull.
That gap quickly evaporated. While Ferrari’s reliability issues, and strategic and driver errors played a part, they also began to lose the development battle. This was especially apparent after the summer break: They just did not have the pace over the whole race anymore, perhaps exacerbated by the technical directive regarding porpoising.
They lost the development battle quite badly: Mercedes were often faster than them in the second half of the season. When asked by Autosport about where and how Red Bull out developed Ferrari, team principal Mattia Binotto said: “I think there have been a few factors. The first I think that, in terms of development, Red Bull had a clear route, which was reducing the weight of the car. This was not our case.”
While Red Bull’s focus was on weight reduction, Ferrari had to tackle aero development: “They knew what [they needed] to tackle to get performance out of the car itself. For us it was more complicated because it was really through aero developments and trying to improve the car from the concept and the aero point of view.”
Mattia Binotto reiterates Ferrari’s goal for 2022 was to be ‘competitive’ again
Ferrari’s stated objective for 2022 was to win races and get back to being ‘competitive’, which they have certainly achieved. However, based on their impressive start to the season, many (including the fans) would have been expecting more, a championship win or at least taking it down to the wire. That didn’t transpire, but Mattia Binotto was still encouraged by the team’s performance this year.
He once again reiterated that the team’s objective was being ‘competitive’ again: “I think what was important for us was to be back to be competitive, and that was for us really the objective. For me, fighting for a good position at the 22nd race, is the best result, because it means that we have been competitive not only at the very start where we had a very strong car.”
Binotto also said that ‘no one would have expected’ Ferrari to continue fighting. While he acknowledged that they had their ups and downs, he also stated that what was more important for the team than their championship finishes was how they were still fighting for good positions by the end of the season. Next year is surely going to be different, however as winning titles at Ferrari is almost an expectation, and the fans, having waited so long, are unlikely to welcome another ‘competitive’ year.
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)