Technical defects, driving errors and strategic mistakes have already cost Ferrari a number of points in the 2022 Formula 1 season. But team boss Mattia Binotto is calm himself. After the last race before the summer break, he simply says: “There is nothing that we have to change.”
The unsuccessful pit tactics at the Hungarian Grand Prix with the hard tires in the second stint “of course we have to look at and understand,” he explains. “We have to understand that and deal with it so that it doesn’t go the same way next time.”
But then Binotto emphasizes once more: “If I look at the balance sheet of the first half of the season, then there is no reason why we should change anything. It’s always just regarding constantly learning and building up experience and skills.”
And that following Ferrari lost at least three potential race victories in the first 13 races of the year because either the technology didn’t play along or the drivers made individual mistakes – most recently at the French Grand Prix in Le Castellet, when Charles Leclerc was in the lead lying down.
Binotto assures: mood at Ferrari is good
The mood at Ferrari is still good, says Binotto: “We win and lose together. [Ungarn] wasn’t great, but I think we still have a lot of potential.”
Leclerc is also far from depressed. “He is trying [in der Sommerpause] to rest and relax so that he comes back even more ambitious,” said Binotto.
As a “leader” at Ferrari, Leclerc will “continue to work on building the team and building himself step by step, seeing every race as a chance to win,” said the team boss.
Binotto had already declared before the Formula 1 summer break that Ferrari might theoretically win all the remaining races of the season. So far this year the team has four wins: three by Leclerc and one by Carlos Sainz.