F1, Ferrari: Mattia Binotto now goes on the counterattack

Ferrari’s team principal doesn’t hide

Nearly a week has passed since the disappointing Hungarian GP, but the echo of criticism raining down on Ferrari, particularly on race strategy managers and team principal Mattia Binotto, does not yet seem to have subsided.

But it was Binotto himself, in an interview with ‘Sky Sport,’ who went on the counterattack, defending the work of the Ferrari box: “With hindsight we all do better than ‘live,'” he explained. “I am convinced that our team is also strong at the strategic level: it is often easier to look at mistakes than what we get right, I am thinking for example of the Austrian Grand Prix. Even in France we were the only ones who brought two medium tires to the race, the others had less courage.”

“The mentality is the right one,” Binotto added, “Everyone takes responsibility by making firm choices, sometimes it may happen that they are not the best ones. However, if I look back, I think the only race I would like to run again is Monte Carlo, where the rain made everything happen. Silverstone? I’m sorry for how it turned out, but I think the choice was right. Then it went the way it did-I don’t know what would have happened if Charles had stopped and Hamilton had stayed on the track with the hard ones.”

After defending the strategic choices, Binotto still cannot help but admit to having regrets: “We could have won five more races, but for one reason or another it didn’t happen. We had reliability problems: this is a technical issue, we have to keep working hard and look ahead. Unfortunately, we had problems always when we were leading, Red Bull always when it was behind us.”