Ferrari track position "key" to unlocking performance - Mattia Binotto

Ferrari

Ferrari track position "key" to unlocking performance - Binotto

Ferrari has consistent pace but can only show it in 'free air'

Will Gray

Sunday 25 July 2021 18:00

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Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto believes the key to Ferrari’s fluctuating form is not in its own race pace but in its position within the pack.

Ferrari has bounced back from a disastrous 2019 campaign, the team's worst since 1980, to join McLaren in the 'fight for third' in the constructors' championship this year.

In clear air at Silverstone after Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton's lap one collision, Charles Leclerc was able to control the pace from the front.

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The Monegasque was passed only with two laps remaining by a resurgent Hamilton and asked where Leclerc’s pace had come from, Binotto assessed: “If you look at [the preceding race in] Austria as a comparison, [McLaren's Lando] Norris had been on the podium doing a fantastic race but his race pace was very similar to ours and we were simply stuck in the traffic.

“I think being ahead in front on the quail in the start of the race is key to have the right pace in the race itself. So here I think it is the opposite because [Leclerc] has been ahead, in front, and we somehow have done our own pace.

“If you compare our two drivers, one of them has been stuck behind and may not have a very good pace but when Carlos [Sainz] was in free air he was in a similar pace to Charles.

“I think that’s our pace, still Lewis [Hamilton] and Max [Verstappen] have better speed and something needs to happen to have the opportunity to be where Charles was, but we have improved since France and that is important.”

Binotto satisfied to see three-race success

At the front-limited French Grand Prix, Ferrari suffered more than most with tyre wear.

The team had expected similar issues at the British Grand Prix following two races on the rear-limited Red Bull Ring and Binotto praised the work that was put in to ensure this was not the case.

He explained: “We should be pleased for the race performance and for the entire weekend performance. After France, the team regrouped, worked united and somehow understood the weaknesses and tried to address it.

“Now it is three races in a row that we have had good pace in the race, which has been a weakness at the start of the season, so now showing that as a team we are progressing and that is what I am more pleased of

“Now, after ten races we’ve got 17 points more than what we had at the end of last season as a team, showing that somehow the progress is obvious.”