Why Mattia Binotto retains faith in his Ferrari F1 strategy team despite recent criticism. Why Mattia Binotto retains faith in his Ferrari F1 strategy team.

After the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 season, some of the Scuderia Ferrari strategy decision has definitely come under fire from the media and fans, but Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto continues to insist that he is far from downbeat about the situation. In complete opposition to this, he defends his strategy department led by Iñaki Rueda, while being aware that there is always room for improvement in each area. Mattia Binotto strongly feels that Ferrari has the right people in place in the right jobs.

His observation will definitely come as a big surprise to many Ferrari and Formula 1 fans, who have heavily criticised the Maranello team for what many believe to be a series of huge strategy mistakes made several times during the first part of the 2022 Formula 1 campaign, which has been a decisive factor in allowing Red Bull and Max Verstappen to gain a solid advantage in both standings at summer break.

Ferrari has also been affected by some power unit issues that led to two retirements for Charles Leclerc in Spain and at the Baku City Circuit, both times while running in the lead. But while the reliability problems can be explained by the strong performance of the 2022 engine, which has been one of Ferrari’s main targets for this year, the fans are worried for constantly questionable strategy calls which have cost championship hopeful Charles Leclerc dearly.

On the streets of Monte Carlos, with Charles Leclerc in the lead and the F1-75 the fastest car during that weekend, Ferrari was not able to respond in time to the extent the circuit was drying after some heavy rain in the first part of the race and the Maranello team allowed Sergio Perez to take advantage and go on to win the Monaco Grand Prix. To make things even worse, a badly timed second stop from Ferrari led to Max Verstappen also passing the Monegasque driver, who finished outside the podium in front of his own fans.

Charles Leclerc was on his way to winning the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, but a late safety car provided the ideal opportunity for rivals to get a free pit stop, while the Maranello team decided to leave Charles on old hard tyres, with the Monegasque driver having no chance to defend in the last laps of the race and once again finishing fourth.

In the last race until the summer break, the Hungarian Grand Prix, the decision to mount the hard tyres for Charles Leclerc left him powerless to defend against title rival Verstappen on a day when the Maranello team once again made a controversial strategy call, but the F1-75 car was also not as strong in terms of race pace as seen in the previous events.

Added on top of this is the way that the strategy panned out for Carlos Sainz at the Paul Ricard circuit, when TV footage of Ferrari’s team radio communications made it seem the strategists were confused and indecisive about the race strategy for the Spaniard.

Mattia Binotto admitted that the Italian side can do better and is adamant lessons have been taken on board, especially from the Monaco Grand Prix, regarding the procedures the Maranello team need to improve and put in place in order for the pit wall to make better informed decisions. At the same time, the Ferrari boss points out that improving is very different from saying that the team has a fundamental problem with its strategy, as he believes that on several occasions this year Ferrari has in fact done a better job than rivals Red Bull and Mercedes in terms of race strategies:

“I think there’s always a way of improving ourselves,” he said in a recent interview for the Italian version of Motorsport – “You cannot be perfect, and you will never be perfect. So no doubt, we need to improve ourselves on the aero, chassis, power unit, on strategy or whatever we can. But having said that, I think I have got a great team on the strategy, and I do not feel it’s a weakness.”

Mattia Binotto feels it is important, when thoroughly evaluating strategy decisions, that they are not judged only based on looking on the outcome with hindsight. Instead, what needs looking at is whether or not the right call was made with the data and information which was available to the team on the pitwall at that stage of the Grand Prix.

Because in Formula One there have often been moments when a decision seemed bad after evaluating it post-race, but could be considered the correct one at the time it was made, especially because teams cannot judge how opponents respond to the decision they take.

Scuderia Ferrari’s decision not to pit Charles Leclerc at Silverstone in the final stages of the race when the safety car was deployed is an example in point, as it is similar to the circumstances that Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton faced at last season’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

The scenario for Lewis Hamilton in the last race of last year and Charles Leclerc this season in the British Grand Prix were identical, both in terms of choices made by the teams and in terms of outcome. For Mattia Binotto, both decisions were ultimately the right correct – despite the fact that on both occasions it cost the drivers the race victory.

Asked about these circumstances, the Ferrari boss added :”I think that what was the right decision for Lewis, I think was maybe the right one still. From the outside, yes, Max won the championship. But Max would have always done the opposite. If he would have been ahead [had Hamilton stopped] then how would he have finished the race? We don’t know. So if, in Silverstone, Charles would have come in, and Lewis stayed out with fresh tyres. How the race would have finished? I don’t know. So even with hindsight, I don’t know what the answer is. But, by the way, no one discusses and argue over their [Mercedes] decision at the time. Everybody believes that they can somehow argue what we decided at Silverstone.” – he continued.

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Discussing the events in some events of the 2022 season so far, Mattia Binotto explained that even the post-race analysis had not highlighted mistakes:

“While maybe you may see Monaco, Silverstone and Paul Ricard as issues, I don’t see them as issues, because I think we made sometimes the right decisions. I’m not convinced right now that what we made was wrong. I am still convinced that we made what was the right decision at the time. Unlucky sometimes, but not wrong. And I think if you look at our strategy team, sometimes they are doing even great things, even greater than the others. We had the right strategy in Austria and the others not. We had probably the best strategy in France before the mistake of Charles. And I think that’s showing: we have been brave enough in France to bring two mediums in the race when the others had hards. To do that you need to be not only strong, but brave. So overall, we’ve got a good team and I do not think that is a weakness to us.” – he concluded.