Mattia Binotto claims that next year’s Ferrari has not been compromised by the team’s recent surge in performance.
Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto says that the team’s 2022 car has not been compromised by the team’s strong performance in the second part of this year’s Formula One season.
In the race for third position in the Constructors’ Championship, Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have secured consecutive double points finishes for the team in the last five events, overhauling McLaren.
With two races remaining, they hold a healthy 39.5-point lead over McLaren, and Binotto claims Ferrari finished development on this year’s car unusually early.
“We never really developed the current car,” Binotto told media. “We introduced a couple of developments at the very start of the season and that’s it, except for the power unit later on.
“But the power unit, again, that was a development in view of 2022, so all our efforts from the very start of the season have always been the 2022 car – we never compromised it.
“So let’s say that it never came into our mind even to at some stage try to penalise 2022 at the benefit of 2021.
“We knew that we could fight for third place at the start of this season. We knew it could have been very tight, but we knew that our main objective in 2021 was not third place, but to try to improve in all the details as a team, and third place has simply been an output of it.
“I think today we are reaching third place because the team, the way they are working at various weekends, has certainly improved a lot since the start of the season, and not because the car itself has developed.”
“Leclerc and Sainz still the best driver line-up”
This year, Leclerc and Sainz’s collaboration has been outstanding, with both drivers frequently matching each other’s performance.
Despite three podium finishes, Sainz is 6.5 points behind Leclerc in the Drivers’ Championship. The Ferrari duo is also in a tight contest with Lando Norris for a top-five finish in the standings.
Ferrari, according to Binotto, has demonstrated that they have the best driver lineup in the current field.
“I said at the start of the season that I believe we’ve got the best line-up on the grid,” said Binotto. “I still believe we’ve got the best line-up of talent.
“They are always working together and getting consistent results.”
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