Binotto warns Ferrari update won’t be ‘silver bullet’ it needs
While Ferrari salvaged a strong result on paper in the Austrian Grand Prix as a fired up Charles Leclerc took his chances in a frantic final few laps, the outcome didn’t quite disguise the otherwise dismal weekend the Scuderia were having up to that point.
In the end Leclerc came away with a strong haul of points for second position, but it comes amid fundamental issues with the Ferrari SF10000, one that is hoping will improve by Hungary, if not be the answer to all of its problems.
Having warned prior to the weekend that it had gone back to the drawing board with the design of its SF1000 to work on upgrade that is set to arrive for round three in Hungary, Ferrari subsequently played down its hopes of challenging for honours
However, on a short circuit with tight margins for error, Ferrari found itself pegged back into the upper midfield with an engine lacking power and a car proving too ‘draggy’ as well, with Leclerc’s seventh place on the grid more than a second slower than he was a year earlier en route to pole position.
Perhaps of greater concern was Ferrari’s race pace wasn’t much better, Leclerc never having the raw pace to keep up with Lando Norris and Sergio Perez in their respective McLaren and Racing Point machines, even if an aggressively opportunistic performance in the closing stages ultimately secured him second.
A welcome result on a trying weekend for Ferrari, Binotto doesn’t expect a miracle upturn in pace when round two kicks off at the same circuit in a few days’ time.
Moreover, Binotto isn’t suggesting the seemingly much-needed updates being teased for round three in Hungary are going to solve all of its issues either.
“I think that what we have seen in Austria is similar to Barcelona, we need to improve our car, there are some mis-correlation with the design, especially on the aero, that is the development we have started again, back from the lockdown, and that hopefully we will have very soon at the race track.
“It will not be the final solution, there is no silver bullet, what’s important to us is to improve the type of behaviours. If I look at the qualifying, compared to the pole, we are missing a second – that’s three-tenths in cornering but then there is still seven-tenths on the straights, and I think that one will be very much difficult, because engine is frozen for the season
“The drag is not something we are addressing very soon, so disappointing yesterday to see our speed on the straight so let’s analyse our data and see what we can do in the future.”
On a day of high attrition as only 11 of the 20 cars reached the chequered flag, Binotto was pleased to get both Ferraris to the chequered flag, even if Sebastian Vettel could only make do with tenth after a mid-race spin.
“Certainly reliability is important, so to finish first, first you have to finish. That’s the norm, we focused a lot on reliability, in winter testing last year we were a bit weak, certainly we put a lot of effort into that. It was very hot somehow and PUs were overheating and I think next week it can be even hotter. That’s something that can be a key element of the start of the season.”
