Scuderia Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto admitted that the Italian side should have taken “more risks” with its strategy in the Mexican Grand Prix
Despite the fact that Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel started the event from the front-row and leading the early stages, a bold one-stop strategy call by rivals Mercedes enabled Lewis Hamilton to jump ahead of both and claim his 10th victory of the season.
Polesitter Charles Leclerc committed to an early two-stop, while Sebastian Vettel was unable to make the most of much fresher tyres compared to Hamilton to pass him on track in the final stint, as he ultimately crossed the line 1.7s behind the world championship leader.
Mattia Binotto said Ferrari did not realise until “very late” that a one-stop strategy was the better option and conceded that Mercedes made the correct call.
“When Charles stopped it was still too early to gamble on the one stop, it would have been too risky,” Mattia Binotto said – “Not only for tyre degradation but for wear as well. That’s something you can look at and analyse in the data. Certainly the gamble they [Mercedes] did was the right gamble. They took some risks to win and I think the risk went to their merit. That’s the way it is, maybe we should have taken more risks. It’s difficult to judge. After the result it’s easy to say yes.” – he added.
Mattia Binotto explained that Ferrari’s strategy was largely influenced by Friday’s running in Mexico City, which pointed towards tyre degradation being high during Sunday’s 71-lap race: “After Friday and Saturday we were certainly not expecting such a long life on the tyres, we need to look back why it behaves like that, something to learn,” he added – “But I think everyone was quite surprised, I think even the people pitting early for one-stop took a gamble, I don’t think that was their initial intention.” – the Ferrari boss concluded.
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