“We have simply reduced the gap we had in terms of speed”: Mattia Binotto confident that Ferrari has narrowed the speed gap with Red Bull
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Mattia Binotto
Ever since Carlos Sainz’s victory in Silverstone with his blazing red Ferrari F1-75, the Scuderia have been biding their time to make their attack on their Championship rival Red Bull. And the opportunity came for them only a week later. In Austria, in Red Bull’s own home race, Ferrari racer Charles Leclerc became victorious as he clinched his fourth Grand Prix title for this season, and his teammate Carlos Sainz was guaranteed the second spot, had his Ferrari not given out only a few minutes before the end of the race, due to a suspected engine failure.
Even though Carlos Sainz’s DNF in Austria took away Ferrari’s chance for a brilliant 1-2 finish in Red Bull’s backyard, Charles’ win has given their team the much-needed hope that they can actually win this year’s Championship if they put all their efforts into it. And upon analysis, it has been found that although the Red Bull RB-18 is indeed faster than the F1-75 of Ferrari in terms of top speed, the Scuderia has been able to chip away at Red Bull’s DRS advantage bring the top speed differences between the two teams to a “negligible” value.
Ferrari keeps faith as they target the Championship, says top speed difference with Red Bull is “negligible”
Eleven races into the current F1 2022 season, it is quite apparent that the two championship contenders for this year are Ferrari and Red Bull. While the Scuderia had the initial advantage over Red Bull as they had won big in the first few races, the Milton-Keynnes-based team soon caught up with the Maranello outfit and outperformed them. The cars manufactured by the two teams have considerable differences and Red Bull’s RB-18 has proven to be faster than its Ferrari counterpart on the straights, but in Austria, the lap times set by the two cars were almost similar.
Analysis has shown that as opposed to Red Bull’s speed in the straights, Ferrari was the faster one of the two in the medium-speed corners. Now, Ferrari is confident that its new low-drag wing, that was first employed for Charles Leclerc’s car at the Canadian Grand Prix, has given them the upper hand on the medium-speed corners and thus they have eliminated the top speed advantage that Red Bull was enjoying all this while.
When Mattia Binotto was asked to give his take on this, he said, “We had a disadvantage compared to the Red Bull, no doubt, in terms of straight line speed – especially in DRS zones.”
“In terms of power of their DRS, compared to ours, we worked a lot on it. So the new rear wing that we introduced first with Charles in Canada, we have had it on both cars since UK.
“And with that new rear wing, I think we have simply reduced the gap we had in terms of speed. I think they still have got a slight advantage, but it’s very little or negligible.”
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Riddhi Mondal
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