According to team principal Mattia Binotto, Ferrari are already fully focused on the 2022 Formula 1 season suggesting that 2021 will be a year to tread water for the great Italian team.
A reasonable result at the recent Emilia Romagna Grand Prix was a positive step for the team that had slipped alarmingly down the pecking order last year.
But the winter months appear to have been productive for the Scuderia as Charles Leclerc is adamant he has a better piece of kit at his disposal this year than he did last year.
He should know, while newcomer Carlos Sainz is still learning the ropes and all he can do is compare to the McLaren he drove last year.
Speaking in the wake of a dramatic weekend at Imola, with Charles fourth and Carlos fifth in the Red cars, Binotto revealed to reporters: “The car for 2021 is where we expected, the correlation with our data is great.
"Is it time to switch to 2022? We already switched from January. The team is fully focused on next year. We will have still some development on 2021 but that is not our priority.”
The pecking order at this early stage of the season is Mercedes and Red Bull are almost on par, or very little if anything to separate the packages. McLaren have hit the road running with a return to Merc-power and are third, with Ferrari there or thereabout and the rest not far behind.
Binotto acknowledged: "I can confirm that Mercedes and Red Bull are still ahead. I don’t think that can be a surprise. The gap was so big last year. I am somehow already happy with what we have managed to progress but it will be a tight battle with McLaren for third place.
“Is that our objective for the season? Our objectives are often said, it is to still prove that we can progress in these areas. If we can do it, it is really a mentality and we will only see at the end what is the result.
“But it is more important to me to show we are capable of racing and of that, we have got a good starting point, I think," added Binotto.
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