Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto admitted that the updates which the Italian side will introduce on the F1-75 car for the fourth round of the 2022 Formula 1 season, the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at the Imola circuit, will not be particularly significant.
Ferrari is looking forward to racing in front of its home fans in Italy, as the Imola will also be the venue for the first Sprint race format of the 2022 Formula 1 championship. However, the special race weekend format, which we first saw last season on three occasions, means that the lack of practice time makes it difficult for Ferrari to bring major updates for evaluation and correlation, as confirmed by team principal Mattia Binotto:
“I think it could be a difficult weekend in the respect of bringing updates and trying to evaluate them in the Friday practice, because, obviously, you need to focus yourself on the qualifying in the afternoon,” – Mattia Binotto said, at the end of the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park circuit – “If we look at ourselves, there will not be much in Imola because, again, we believe it will not be the right place.” – he added.
Regardless, the Ferrari boss explained that there will be some small changes to the F1-75 car, that will mark the first tweaks since Ferrari’s 2022 challenger first hit the track for the pre-season testing session at the Circuit de Catalunya: “We’ll try to mitigate the issues we’ve got so far and think about the bouncing that has affected our performance over the weekends. We are going to try to work on that specific point. But, for the upgrades of, let’s say, a more significant one, it will be following later on in the season.” – he added.
There is a lot of enthusiasm in the Ferrari camp ahead of the home race in Italy, where Charles Leclerc has the potential to hold a record-breaking points lead after four Grands Prix, in case the Monegasque driver will be able to take pole position in the Sprint race and go one to win the main event on Sunday. Mattia Binotto admitted that he was surprised about how strong a start the Scuderia have made in the 2022 Formula 1 season:
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“Yes, [I’m] certainly surprised. I think we worked hard, and we put a lot of priority on 2022. I knew that the team was a great team and we improved ourselves compared to the past seasons. I was hoping to have a competitive car for the start of the season. When coming to the winter testing, we knew we had a competitive car but, certainly, I was not expecting such a good start to the season. I think that would be unfair to think that, but I still believe that the difference between us and the others can be very little. I think the past races have proven that, and it will be a great fight in the next races.” – Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto concluded.
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