“Did the updates benefit us? They certainly did not put us at a disadvantage” – In this way, Christian Horner answered a question on the impact of the updates brought by Red Bull to the RB18 car at the Imola Grand Prix. The car brought to the track by Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez was lighter thanks to a floor made with materials less heavy, with obvious advantages in terms of tire management and wear, as emerged on the Santerno circuit both in the Sprint and in the actual Grand Prix.
Even Max Verstappen at the press conference did not want to overbalance the actual step forward of the RB18 on the occasion of the Imola weekend: “It is difficult to quantify our improvement and it is not even easy to establish whether there have actually been any obvious benefits because the weekend has been really crazy about both the format and the weather. It could also simply be a particularly good set-up on our part for this track, just as Ferrari was perfect in Australia where we struggled a lot. Here, in terms of tire degradation, the situation has been reversed, but in Miami it could be Ferrari that has the advantage again”.
Regardless of Red Bull’s updates, Charles Leclerc has repeatedly stressed that in Maranello they must work to respond to the pace of Red Bull in terms of car development, a characteristic of the Milton Keynes team that team principal Mattia Binotto has always pointed out during interviews, which is why he has always identified in Red Bull not only Ferrari’s opponent in the 2022 Formula 1 season, but also the real favorite for the title.
Mattia Binotto was interviewed by Sky Sport F1 at the end of the Emilia Romagna GP and confirmed that for the next round of the Formula 1 championship, which takes place in Miami, Ferrari will introduce some updates, while in Barcelona there will be a more substantial package as usual for all the teams.
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As explained yesterday evening by Mattia Binotto at a press conference in view of the first trip to the United States, Ferrari has prepared a new rear wing with the aim of gaining aerodynamic efficiency, or reducing drag to improve top speed. This is one of the main key areas where Red Bull has been stronger than Ferrari: when it reaches 260 km / h, at the moment Red Bull makes a big difference compared to the F1-75. The other small changes will concern the floor area to limit the porpoising phenomenon, the bouncing on the straight for now minimized by Charles Leclerc, but in any case not to be underestimated, especially given the small performance differences as compared with Red Bull.
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