Binotto acknowledges Ferrari mistakes at Monaco
Mattia Binotto himself admitted that the Scuderia failed strategically this Sunday. “First, we have to admit that if you lead the race and end up in fourth position, we may have done something wrong. So we certainly made mistakes in our judgment and in our appeals. »
Binotto seeks to understand the process which pushed Ferrari to the fault. “I think the first mistake was to underestimate the pace of the intermediate tires and the gap we had with the other cars in terms of track position. The process I think is still something we need to look at and we just had our briefing with the pilots, we went through everything, we had discussions, we tried to understand, but believe- me, it was quite complicated. It wasn’t easy, but we definitely made a mistake. »
“And I think we made a mistake too because we suppose had to call him [Leclerc] earlier, at least a lap earlier, or if it wasn’t, we should just stay on the wet tyres, taking I think first position, and then maybe go straight to the slicks. »
Unlike Barcelona two weeks ago, it was not the mechanics that gave up. The result is the same, but the manner obviously hurts even more for Binotto. “What happened in Spain was a whole different story. Obviously, we had reliability problems when we were well ahead of the race. Here there were circumstances that made life harder for us, but we were not good at judging and deciding. »
The Scuderia director logically believes that learning from such situations is very important. “I’m pretty sure it’s a situation that makes us stronger. We are quite aware of this: being complete is a fact; winning is another task and it’s another level of difficulty. And I think as a team we are always improving, we are learning and maybe it will take more time. »
Ferrari now sits 36 points behind Red Bull in the constructors’ standings. Charles Leclerc is six points behind Max Verstappen after conceding three in Monaco, in a weekend where he could – and should – have managed to regain the lead in the championship.