‘Sure they’ll be back,” Mercedes and Red Bull not taking Ferrari’s threat lightly despite their lackluster outing in Mexico
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Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto
The Ferrari F1 Team had a weekend to forget at the recently concluded Mexican GP, but Mercedes and Red Bull believe that they were not able to show their full potential during the race.
Ferrari struggled for pace on all three days of the Mexican adventure and this allowed the Brackley-based Mercedes Team to step from the back door and take the fight to Red Bull at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez Circuit.
While the Mercedes Team was somewhat able to challenge Red Bull for the win, Ferrari was nowhere to be seen during the whole duration of the race.
The Maranello-based team’s Carlos Sainz finished the race as the lead car for the outfit with a P5 finish, but what’s startling, is the fact that he was 58 seconds behind race winner, Max Verstappen.
Since Ferrari’s dismissal showing in Mexico, questions are getting raised about whether they would be able to challenge Red Bull during the upcoming races.
However, despite the doubts, Christian Horner while stressing Ferrari’s outing in Mexico said, “I think this track has played to their strengths. I think Ferrari looked like they were a little bit handicapped this weekend, so I’m not sure we saw their real pace. I’m sure they’ll be back.”
Toto Wolff’s take on Ferrari’s slump at the Mexican GP
Christian Horner is adamant that the Italian outfit would be back with a bang in the upcoming races and when Toto Wolff was also asked to state his opinion on Ferrari’s struggles, he added, “I wouldn’t want to say that because they are a strong team and we’ve had a few strong Sundays now.”
“But maybe this circuit flattered us. I think, after Brazil, we’ll have maybe more of a picture, but I don’t think they’re suddenly half a minute slower than us.”
While Toto Wolff feels that Brazil would give a clearer picture of where Mercedes stand in comparison to Ferrari, Mattia Binotto, the Italian team’s boss has revealed that he is not sure why his team was so far adrift of Mercedes and Red Bull in Mexico.
While stressing about it, he added, “I think the compromise both of them [drivers] are mentioning certainly is in terms of the power unit; we were not at our best performance for the weekend.”
“But I don’t think that that’s explaining the most. That’s part of the equation, but there is certainly more than that, and it’s something which we need to look at. There is not a clear answer right now.“
“The ride was not great. The balance was not great. I’m pretty sure if I’m listening to the drivers later on in the debriefing, they will tell me that the car was not turning. The reason why I think it has to be looked at and we have not a clear explanation right now.”
Ferrari is not 100 percent sure as to where its pace went at the Mexican GP but considering that there are around 10 days left for the Brazilian GP, the team has ample time to get to the bottom of the problem and solve it before F1 goes racing in Brazil.
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Rishabh Negi
(3244 Articles Published)