Binotto believes that the lack of performance is due to low temperatures
Ferrari had the best race pace during the trials, but missed out on their race. The director of the Scuderia indicates that the temperature is the cause of these performance gaps.
The victory was conceivable today, but in the end, no Ferrari on the podium. Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz were the two favorites for this Hungarian Grand Prix, following their performances at the beginning of the weekend and Max Verstappen’s difficulties.
However, despite having a comfortable position, Ferrari lost ground to Red Bull, and mainly to the Dutch driver who emerged victorious.
I think we are disappointed, we were expecting a better result today, maybe even a victory. The car didn’t perform as we had hoped when we look at the times we had during the race simulations on Friday, we had an advantage over everyone. Today, the conditions were much colder and the car didn’t work », says Mattia Binotto in an interview with Canal + after the race.
No rhythm with hard tires
The Scuderia’s surprising strategy, choosing to use hard tires in the second part of the race, did not prove to be successful. A few laps earlier, Alpine had also opted for this strategy and had struggled.
« The Alpine team was having difficulties with these tires [the hard ones], we expected two warm-up laps with some difficulty. For about ten laps, they would have been slower than the yellow ones, but by the end of the race, they would have gained an advantage. […] Our simulations told us that they could perform better than that. »
Finally, Charles Leclerc was forced to return to the pits to switch to soft tires to finish the race. With one more pit stop than his competitors, the Monegasque driver finishes in 6th place and loses valuable points in the championship. He is now 80 points behind the reigning world champion.
