Binotto: Don't look into strategy, the car wasn't good

Binotto was defiant after the race when faced with questions regarding Ferrari's strategy, an area the team have been embarrassingly bad,

Instead he took to the team's F1-75, rapid all season, but so much around the Hungaroring according to the Swiss-born Italian.

Ferrari reacted to Red Bull's undercut attempt mid race, and put Charles Leclerc on Hard tyres after a shorter-than-expected stint in the Mediums, a decision that had the Monegasque baffled.

Quizzed about the use of the Hards, Binotto said: "I think the main reason, before to come why we decided for the hard tyre, I think it’s important to say that we believe that the car was not working as expected and we didn’t have the speed we were hoping for looking back at the Friday and the pace we had in the race conditions on Friday.

"So today was certainly different conditions, a lot cooler. But overall the speed today was not great enough, and whatever tyres we were using, I don’t think we were as good as we were looking for and as good as we were.

"Certainly even worse with the hard," he said of the F1-75's pace. "So when we fitted the hard, our simulation was that it could have been a difficult couple of laps of warm-up, it would have been slower to the medium for 10-11 laps, and then it would have come back and been faster than the end of the stint, and it was a 30-lap stint.

"We fitted the hard tyres at the time because with a 30-lap stint, we were trying to protect position on Max," Binotto reasoned. "It would have been too long certainly for the softs. Our choice and analysis, yes, it would have been difficult at the start of the stint, but it would have come back by the end."

The Ferrari team principal went on to blame the car again saying: "Overall, the car was... I know we were not working as well on other cars, but still the analysis we made was and I think that as I said before, the main reason is not to look into the strategy, but why the car was not as good as we were hoping today."

Binotto claimed Carlos Sainz's race was proof that the strategists did a good job saying: "The car was, for the first time this season, the car was not as competitive as we were normally looking for.

"It’s the case as well with Carlos, Carlos was on exactly the same strategy as Lewis, he was starting ahead but finishing behind, and Lewis finished 10 seconds.

"So the car today was not performing well, and if the car is not performing, then it doesn’t make the tyres perform as they should, and certainly not the hard tyres," the 52-year-old insisted.

Let's give Binotto the benefit of the doubt that Sainz's strategy was ok and it was the Spaniard struggling with his car, but can that apply to Leclerc?

He was leading the race when pitted, and as he said afterwards he was happy with his pace, until of course he was put on the dreaded Hard tyres that were causing trouble to other teams who used them earlier, namely Alpine.

Whatever the case, Binotto's explanation is not good enough especially in this Formula 1 season were for the first time in years, Ferrari has a decent chance to fight for the Title. (Additional reporting by Agnes Carlier)