31/07/2022
NEWS STORY
Ferrari boss, Mattia Binotto claims it was the F1-75's lack of performance in cooler temperatures rather than poor strategy that compromised his team today.
Surely, around the world, as Charles Leclerc - pictured channeling his inner Joe Pesci from Casino - pitted on lap 39 of today's race only to be fitted with hard tyres, the cries of frustration were even greater than those heard last weekend when the Italian team appeared to be telling Carlos Sainz to pit at the precise moment he was battling Sergio Perez for third place.
Over the course of the preceding laps we had witnessed numerous drivers come to regret the switch to hards, yet here was the race leader making the same mistake.
As the rest of the world breathed a sigh, suggesting that it was business as usual for the Maranello squad, Mattia Binotto claims it was the Ferrari's performance in the cooler conditions that compromised its race and not poor strategic calls.
"When we fitted the hard, our simulation was that it could have been a difficult couple of laps of warm-up," Binotto explained.
"It would have been slower to the medium for 10 or 11 laps," he continued, "and then it would have come back and been faster than the end of the stint, and it was a 30-lap stint.
"We were trying to protect position on Max," he insisted. "It would have been too long certainly for the softs.
"Yes, it would have been difficult at the start of the stint," he admitted, "but it would have come back by the end."
Asked why Ferrari hadn't learned from the struggles of other drivers on the hards, most notably Fernando Alonso, Binotto said: "We discussed it, but it's not that it is all written in stone.
"During the race and looking at what's going on, we have as well looked at what was happening with the other hard tyres. We took all considerations, we discussed what would have been best and that's the choice that we made.
"It certainly was not the right one today," he admitted.
"It's important to say that we believe that the car was not working as expected," he insisted. "We didn't have the speed we were hoping for looking back at Friday, and the pace we had in the race conditions on Friday. So today was certainly different conditions, a lot cooler.
"But overall the speed today was not great enough, whatever tyres we were using, I don't think we were as good as we were looking for."
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