Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto warned his team that the battle against McLaren for P3 in the 2021 Formula 1 constructors’ championship is “not over yet” despite the fact that the Maranello team seems to be in a strong position to finish behind Mercedes and Red Bull, with just two races until the end of the season.
Scuderia Ferrari currently has a 39.5 point-advantage ahead of McLaren after the Qatar Grand Prix last weekend. McLaren came closing to a P4 at the Losail International Circuit with Lando Norris, but the British driver had to make an additional pit stop in the final stages of the race, eventually finishing ninth behind Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc.
Despite the positive results as compared to McLaren in the last four races, Mattia Binotto is still wary of McLaren given that the final two Grands Prix are likely to suit Ferrari’s opponents.
“Obviously, the championship is not over yet, there are two races to go, we are focused on trying to do the best, but no doubt if I look at where we were last year – sixth, very little points in the championship, we made the most of what we could do with the current regulation where most of the car was frozen and very limited opportunity of development, and budget cap of 2021 where we had to put 2022 development instead of the 2021.” – Mattia Binotto said after the race in Qatar – “Overall in think the team has made great progress of what was possible, for that I’m happy as yes the third position is a great output of the effort.” – he added.
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With Scuderia Ferrari confident it can return to the front next season, Mattia Binotto confirms the target for the 2021 Formula 1 championship was to continually improve as a team, rather than just finish in third place in the constructors’ championship.
“We introduced a couple of developments at the start of the season and that’s it, except the power unit later on, but the power unit again that was a development with a view for 2022. All our efforts since the start of the season has been the 2022 car and we never compromised it. It never came into our mind to at some stage try and penalise the 2022 for the benefit of the 2021. We knew we could fight for third place at the start of the season, we knew it could be very tight, but our main objective in 2021 was not the third place but to improve in all the details as a team and the third place will simply be the output of it, and if today we are reaching the third place it is the team, the way they are working at various weekends has certainly improved a lot since the very start of the season and not because the car itself has developed through the season.” – the Ferrari boss concluded.
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