After a season of errors and missed opportunities, Ferrari have lost not only a chance to win a world championship, and many race wins, but now its team principal too.
Speaking after the final round in Abu Dhabi, little more than a week before he stepped down, Mattia Binotto admitted the criticism he faced during the season had been “difficult” at times.
“It has certainly been a difficult one because criticism [has] never obviously been accepted or, let me say, [has] to be managed more than accepted,” he explained. “And more than that, I think [it’s] for me to try to keep the team focused and concentrated on the job.”
“So, the criticisms are there to distract a team, and [how to] keep a team focused is never obvious. So it has been difficult, but I think that will make me only stronger in the future.”
Binotto will carry those lessons into his post-Ferrari career. But what provoked the criticisms he and the team faced over the past season?
After two winless campaigns, an encouraging start to 2022 raised expectations of Ferrari to a level they quickly struggled to meet. Charles Leclerc led Carlos Sainz Jnr home in a Ferrari one-two in the opening race at Bahrain, then another double podium followed in Jeddah to maintain their occupancy of the top two positions in the standings.
A second win from three races for Leclerc in Melbourne meant he had almost twice as many points as anyone else, and Ferrari had almost double the points of Red Bull. That set a standard Ferrari failed to sustain over the rest of the year. Occasionally this was due to driver error, but more often problems arose elsewhere.
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A series of slip-ups in the pits compromised their drivers’ races, beginning with a slow tyre change for Sainz at the Miami Grand Prix. Leclerc lost time in the pits in consecutive races at Baku and Montreal, then Sainz was penalised when he was released into the path of another driver during the French Grand Prix.
It was a tough afternoon for Ferrari, as Leclerc was on course to win before crashing out. Afterwards, Binotto said there was “no reason” why the team should not “win 10 races from now to the end” of 2022], given the pace they had shown up to that point. Aiming for more wins “is the way to look at this, positively,” he stressed. “And I like to be positive….
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