Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto confirmed that the Italian side was not able to run Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz’s F1-75 cars at maximum power in last weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, which was one of the several reasons why their were so far off pace as compared to Red Bull and even Mercedes, who for the first time this season was clearly much faster than the Maranello team.
Scuderia Ferrari started the 2022 championship strong, with impressive performance levels, but gradually lost ground to Mercedes and reached the lowest level at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez: the F1-75 cars were not able to challenge for a place on the front row in qualifying and then were anonymous throughout a Grand Prix in which Red Bull and Mercedes fought for the race win with a gap of more than 30 seconds to Ferrari.
Mattia Binotto was asked to comments on the terrifying performance in Mexico City, as Ferrari now have to avoid other similar outcomes in order to at least keep second place in the Constructors’ Standings, with Mercedes now closer ahead of the last two races of the 2022 Formula 1 season:
“It has been already yesterday in qualifying quite behind the pole position but normally in the qualifying we are quite competitive. Today in the race, it has simply emphasized the fact that we were not comfortable with the track this week and our overall performance has not been great,” – the Ferrari boss explained at the end of the Mexican Grand Prix.
Aa the F1-75 cars’ incredibly poor pace pointed out to him by the Italian media, Mattia Binotto added:
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“No doubt, as you said, of the pace in the race today. The compromise in terms of power unit, we were not at our best performance for the weekend. I don’t think that it needs explaining. That’s part of the equation. There is more than that. There is certainly more than that. It’s something which we need to look at and there is not a clear answer right now. So, the ride was not great. The balance was not great. I’m pretty sure if I’m listening at the drivers later on in the debriefing, they will tell me that the car was not turning and the reason why. It has to be looked at and we have not a clear explanation right now,” the Ferrari boss expected.
Scuderia Ferrari’s engine issues is related to the fact that turbos (the Maranello team’s turbos are smaller by design as compared to Mercedes and Honda’s) need to work harder to be able to get air into the power unit at a venue such as the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, which is situated 2.2km above sea level, making the air quite thin.
As a result, Ferrari was forced to use their power units in conservative settings in order not to risk technical failures in such difficult operating conditions, as confirmed by the Italian side’s boss:
“We were running maximum downforce at the end. We tried to reduce it on FP2, but then we went back on to the maximum downforce so we didn’t try to mitigate by downforce level. It’s as well that in terms of turbo, maybe a little turbo, but yes, we are not as efficient. Ferrari didn’t have the capacity at least to run maximum power here. Charles and Carlos did the best they could and the way they tackled the first few corners after the start was exemplary.” – Mattia Binotto pointed out, as the Ferrari boss wanted to credit both his drivers for making the most of a difficult situation in Mexico.
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