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Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto retains the backing of the manufacturer’s chairman John Elkann but has been told the team need to make fewer mistakes.After taking an early lead in both championships over the first three races of 2022, Ferrari were quickly caught and overhauled by Red Bull. The Scuderia’s championship hopes now look like a lost cause, Red Bull leading the constructors’ standings by 135 points, while Max Verstappen has a 109-point lead in the drivers’ title fight.
“After the first grand prix, it seemed legitimate to dream,” Elkann told La Gazzetta dello Sport, “but we must remain humble and let the results speak for themselves.”
While he admitted he was “not satisfied” with the team’s season, Elkann made it clear he continues to back Binotto, who was installed as team principal in 2019.
“I believe that trusting Binotto and his team was the right choice and it paid off.” said Elkann. “Thanks to them we are competitive and winning again.”
Although Ferrari have been consistently in the hunt for victories on pace for much of the season, a combination of strategic mistakes, unreliability and driving errors have compromised their championship bid. Elkann stressed he has “trust in and gratitude for the work done by Mattia Binotto and our engineers.”
“But there is no doubt that the work in Maranello, in the pits, on the pit wall and at the wheel needs to mature,” he added. “We must continue to grow.
“This applies to the mechanics, for the engineers, for the drivers, and obviously for all the management, including the team principal. We have seen it on reliability, on driving, on strategy. There are still too many mistakes.”
But Elkann remains confident the team will end its championship drought within the coming seasons.
“We have aimed to be competitive first and foremost,” he said. “If you are not competitive you have no margins, while you can work on reliability.
“This is why I am confident that between now and 2026, Ferrari will return to winning a constructors and drivers world championship. We will succeed before 20 years of fasting, given that our last drivers world championship dates back to 2007 and the constructors championship to 2008.”
He praised the team’s “two great drivers” Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jnr, calling them “probably the strongest couple in Formula 1.”
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