Inadvertently or not Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto has admitted that their 2019 chassis lacks downforce to harness the power they obviously have.
Typically Ferrari won the ‘Test Season’ and expected to be on a good footing for Australia only to find that whatever problem Mercedes had was resolved and, as usual, the World Champions had a superb piece of kit for their drivers.
Binotto admitted in an interview with Motorsport Network, “I think we’ve been surprised by our poor performance at the start of the season because maybe we were not thinking to be ahead, but at least as fast as them, and it has not been the case in Australia. Maybe it was the case in Bahrain, but it has not been on average the case we were thinking.”
“As we said, certainly these tyres require more downforce just to heat them up, to make them work. So, yes, if I would come back one year ago, I would give more focus on the downforce compared to what we did, even to the disadvantage of some more drag. Can we call that a ‘concept’? Not too sure. I think it’s an objective that has become more clear, certainly.”
“It’s true as well that if you look at the first half of the season, it’s quite strange how in certain races some cars are performing well and others not – even maybe the cars which have been the fastest at the start of the season, in some tracks were certainly not the fastest. I think it’s really up and down, of all the cars.”
“If there is anything that needs to be looked at, it’s maybe the average. And maybe as well winter testing simply it was a case where we were overperforming or they were underperforming, whatever were the reasons, and that turned into a different situation on different circuits, different time, different weather, different tyres.”
“We missed a few opportunities, and certainly today if you would’ve looked at the result with a few wins, the picture would’ve been completely different,” added the Ferrari chief.
Big Question: Does Mattia need help leading Ferrari?
Hungarian Grand Prix: Hamilton chases hard to beat Verstappen