Mattia Binotto assures that Ferrari could have closed the first half of the season with eight wins if the reliability had accompanied. The person in charge of the Scuderia puts the single-seaters of Ferrari and Red Bull at the same level.
Scuderia Ferrari has won a total of four Grands Prix in the first half of the season, three by the hand of Charles Leclerc and one with Carlos Sainz as the protagonist. A remarkable loot, but far from the expectations that the Italian firm’s project has generated since the preseason. With a fast Ferrari F1-75 and solid wickets to fight for victories, the truth is that the feeling that flies over Maranello is that of a missed opportunity.
At the end of the summer break, Ferrari resumes activity with the impression of facing a too steep slope. Recurring reliability problems, failures in the pits and at a strategic level have meant that Ferrari is 97 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ standings, while Leclerc is 80 points behind Dutchman Max Verstappen. The performance seems to be on the table, not so much the reliability according to what has been seen so far.
“Red Bull has also had reliability problems, but they never had them when they were in the lead”
There are few opportunities lost by Ferrari. Charles Leclerc’s pole in Miami that did not end in victory, his abandonment in Spain due to turbo problemsthe major strategic failures in Monaco and Hungary, engine breakdown in Charles in Azerbaijanwhere Carlos Sainz also had a hydraulic problem, or Sainz’s broken engine in Austria and the Leclerc accident in France have generated this lack of results and deficit of points.
Binotto sticks his finger in the yaga
Mattia Binotto has been the first to recognize this circumstance and in a recent interview with ‘AMuS’, the head of Ferrari has pointed directly to the reliability problems of the team. According to Binotto, without these recurring mechanical failures, Ferrari could have achieved twice as many victories and approach the second half of the season with a different perspective. Binotto’s milkmaid accounts indicate that Ferrari should have eight wins.
In reference to this circumstance and the efficiency of Ferrari around its results, Mattia Binotto he surrenders to the evidence, assuring that «we only won four of thirteen races and Red Bull is more efficient there. We could have won eight times without our problems, so the balance would have been reversed. The normal thing would have been for there to be some intermediate point and although Red Bull has also had reliability problems, they never had them when they were in the lead. For us it was the other way around in Spain, Azerbaijan and France».
A reasoning that Binotto supports in the equality of performance that exists between the single-seaters of Ferrari and Red Bull: «Cars are almost as fast. We are within a margin of one tenth. One cannot say that one car is better than the other. At the beginning of the season Red Bull was better. They had a rear wing that was more efficient when DRS was activated. We reduce this handicap with a new spoiler. The balance in the end is neutral, since they are two completely different cars.
Despite the dramatic difference between Binotto’s accounts and reality, the team follows the line: «I have never seen such a big jump at Ferrari in my 27 years. This has been an exceptional achievement, especially at a time when testbed hours are limited. And I think that’s what we’ve paid for in terms of reliability.. At another time, the time on the dynamometer would have been increased and parallel programs of performance and reliability would have been carried out. This time, there was a choice. The goal is to fix problems as quickly as possible.».
Font: Auto Motor und Sport
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Photos: Scuderia Ferrari