Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz did not want to be drawn on the future of Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto given the recent rumours that he will soon be replaced at the top of the Italian side’s Racing Division, but feels that it would not have been realistic for Ferrari to expect to win the Formula 1 championships in such a short timeframe.
The Maranello team has been Ferrari have been strongly criticised this season for not being able to challenge Red Bull despite a terrific start to the 2022 F1 campaign, after Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc secured two race victories in the first three rounds, the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Australian Grand Prix. However, a combination of engine reliability problems and wrong strategic decisions from the Ferrari pit wall led to more than 100 points lost midway through the year. As a result, the future of Mattia Binotto as head of the Scuderia is in doubt, according to the Italian media.
Speculation has grown and most of the Italian media outlets inform that it is only a matter of time until the 53-year-old engineer will be replaced, most likely with the current Alfa Romeo boss Frédéric Vasseur.
Carlos Sainz, who completed his second year with the Maranello team and took his first Formula One 1 in 2022, at Silverstone, did not want to comment on what may or may not happen to his team principal, but pointed out that it would not be fair for anyone to demand a Ferrari championship win in 2022, given the fact that the Italian side came from a distant third place in the 2021 Constructors’ standings and going directly to an undisputed No 1 spot they held during the Michael Schumacher era was not a realistic target.
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While Red Bull were able to quickly fix their reliability issues in the first races of the 2022 F1 campaign, Ferrari was not able to build on the positive start and couldn’t capitalize on the strong pace of the F1-75 in the first part of the season due to a series of avoidable errors, even having to defend second place against Mercedes in the final rounds after the German driver recovered the gap to the F1-75, while the Maranallo team opted to already focus on next year’s car.
Quizzed by Sky F1 about what he would like to see happen and if stability is in fact what Ferrari need to get back on top in the next years, Carlos Sainz explained:
“I won’t get into what I prefer. I don’t prefer, I just know from experience Rome wasn’t built in a day and you need to take into account where we are coming [from]. Did you see the progress we’ve done as a team in these last two seasons? It’s huge, and the team is working well. We are very ultra-critical behind closed doors, probably towards the public we are protecting each individual of the team and we are having this famous no-blame culture where we want to obviously protect everyone and we are, I think, doing a great job at that. But it is true that we’ve done plenty of mistakes this year and that we want to be a better team, but it doesn’t come from one year to another and we need to keep improving. I think the second half of the season we’ve been a bit better at everything, we just didn’t develop [the car] enough.” – the Spaniard pointed out.
Carlos Sainz also shared his overall view on the championship that has just ended:
“I’m not entirely happy with my season,” said the 28-year-old. “I won’t lie, the first half was too tough for me, too tough compared to what I expected. I’ve never been lacking pace in a car. I’ve always been at the pace pretty much straight away with every car I’ve been driving and this was the first time in my career I was two or three tenths off the pace and I had to really put my head down and try to find where these two or three tenths were. Charles was driving extremely well in the first half and this exposed a bit more my limitations and I found them in the end. I got myself in the rhythm, got myself to a good level with this car which is now the baseline and the pace I can do next year from the beginning.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded.
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