Ferrari can’t solve F1 tyre woes until next season - Binotto

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto has revealed that the team cannot solve its current Formula 1 tyre woes until next season after enduring a torrid French Grand Prix.
Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP), Scuderia Ferrari
Carlos Sainz Jr (ESP), Scuderia Ferrari
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After qualifying fifth and seventh at the Circuit Paul Ricard, Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc plummeted out of the points-paying positions to finish 11th and 16th. 

Following the race, Sainz said that Ferrari's tyre wear was “two times” worse than its F1 rivals.

With McLaren finishing fifth and sixth, Ferrari trails the Woking-based outfit by 16 points in the race for third in the constructors’ championship.

The French GP wasn’t the first time that Ferrari has struggled on race day, with it falling behind Aston Martin and AlphaTauri in Azerbaijan last time out. 

Binotto believes Ferrari won’t suffer the same tyre graining issues at every race this season but admits it could happen again.

”Can we develop it through a simple development on the current car? Probably we could improve the situation but to solve it would need some hardware change, for example, the rims, which is not possible in the regulation," Binotto said.

“It is more important for us that we are at the stage where we can understand and try to address it for next year. In the meanwhile, this issue will happen again at some races but not all of the tracks.

“It will be track and weather-conditions related. We need to prepare ourselves in case of such a situation in the future and at this track, it may be a bigger problem since it happened again."

When asked for the cause of Ferrari’s tyre woes, Binotto didn’t have an explanation.

“But I don’t have an answer right now, I think what we need is to analyse the data, do some simulations, I think that will be part of the homework we need to do, as Carlos mentioned before, but as of now I can’t answer the question," Binotto added.

The Italian doubts Pirelli’s decision to up the tyre pressures as a result of the two tyre blowouts in Baku exacerbated the issue for Ferrari.

“I don’t think it has any impact, if I look at the prescriptions it has been raised at the rear and we had the issue on the front, so in terms of running those nothing has changed for us and I don’t think the prescriptions at the rear has been the problem,” Binotto explained. “The answer is pretty clear no."

 

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