“We could have won eight races, Red Bull was more efficient than us”. Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, when asked to make an overall analysis of the first half of the 2022 Formula 1 season and the first 13 races this year, stressed that the Italian side could easily have doubled the flags that currently stand out at the entrance to the Ferrari Racing Department in Maranello. There are four flags thanks to the successes of Charles Leclerc in Bahrain, Australia and Austria, alongside the victory of Carlos Sainz in Great Britain.
Ferrari won on Red Bull’s home tracks, but overall the Milton Keynes team has already scored nine wins this season, eight with Max Verstappen and one with Sergio Perez in Monaco. The Dutch driver has an 80-point advantage over Charles Leclerc ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix while in the Constructors’ standings Ferrari has to try to recover 97 points against Red Bull, with Mercedes gradually taking advantage of its constant performance and several misfortunes suffered by the F1-75 cars, due to reliability issues or poor strategy calls. As a result, Mercedes is just 30 points behind Ferrari, despite the fact that the Maranello team’s F1-75 challenger was definitely far more superior in terms of speed and race pace.
Over the next weekend, Formula 1 will finally be back on track in Belgium at Spa Francorchamps, the first stage of a hat-trick that also includes Zandvoort and Monza without interruption. Getting back in the fight for the world championship will not be easy for Scuderia Ferrari also because in Belgium Charles Leclerc is expected to take another penalty on the starting grid.
The Monegasque driver will most likely have to take a penalty of at least five places on the grid due to the introduction of the new updated hybrid system, given the fact that the definitive power unit development freeze regarding the electrical components will start on 1 September. However, the strong pace of the F1-75 car provides well-founded hopes for a solid comeback during the Belgian Grand Prix for the Monegasque driver.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma! Enter the online Puma Store and shop securely! And get your F1 tickets for every race with VIP hospitality and unparalleled insider access. Click here for the best offers to support Charles and Carlos from the track!
Antonio Giovinazzi, third Ferrari driver and a decisive factor in the work done on the simulator to prepare the race weekends this year, underlines that the dream of winning the 2022 Formula 1 world championship is still alive among the men in Maranello: “The spirit of the Italians has always been not to give up” – said Antonio Giovinazzi, in a recent interview for the Italian daily newspaper Il Corriere dello Sport – “Ferrari was fighting for the top 10 last year and is now the fastest car in the Championship. There are certainly many points that the team needs to recover, but we know we have the best package and the best car. We will therefore try until the end.” – Antonio Giovinazzi concluded.
Leave a Reply