Former Scuderia Ferrari racer Jean Alesi believes the Maranello team is on the right path to return to fighting for the world titles, despite the many mistakes and problems faced by the Italian side in the first half of the 2022 Formula One campaign. The former F1 French racing driver of Italian origin has also called for patience with Ferrari, feeling confident that Mattia Binotto remains the right man for the job, but pointing out that the current team principal needs more time to build a winning side.
While there was a lot of criticism from the Italian media due to Ferrari’s troubled 2022 so far, Jean Alesi wanted to defend the team and has therefore become the latest voice to call for calm, despite the difficult moments, with a series of poor results that have seen the Maranello team crumble away from an early championship lead.
A few days ago, former Ferrari team principal Cesare Fiorio also wanted to express his support for Mattia Binotto, given the strengths of the F1-75 project, which allowed the team to once again fight for pole positions for race wins for the first time since 2019. Ferrari proved able to take advantage of the new rules and regulation which Formula 1 introduced this season and it was clear from the start that the F1-75 challenger was very strong. The beginning of the current campaign was promising, with two race victories from the first three rounds: the results allowed Charles Leclerc to have a solid 46-point lead over Max Verstappen ahead of the Imola Grand Prix, also because Red Bull suffered some mechanical issues in the first two races of the season.
However, it all went downhill starting from the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix: several poor strategy calls, alongside power unit problems and a few driver mistakes led to Max Verstappen comfortably leading the Drivers’ Championship ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix which takes place later this month.
Inevitably, the Italian side has also lost a lot of ground in the Constructors’ Championship: with now races to go until the end of the campaign, Ferrari will attempt to recover the almost 100-point deficit to Red Bull, which realistically will be difficult without a few technical issues for the RB18 cars in the second part of the season.
As usually happens, Ferrari’s series of unfortunate outcomes and missed opportunities led to dismay and anger from the Italian media outlets. Mattia Binotto stuck by his team and did not want to blame anyone for some questionable strategy decisions, slow pitstops and power unit issues that have hindered Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz efforts in 2022. Most recently there was a lot of discussion after the Hungarian Grand Prix, as Ferrari made a bad call by mounting the hard tyre on the F1-75 car of Charles Leclerc, a compound which was far less competitive than Ferrari had anticipated, due to the low temperatures in Budapest. Instead, Mattia Binotto wanted to point out that the performance of the car was inadequate and would not have allowed Charles Leclerc to fight for the race victory at the Hungaroring.
Mattia Binotto’s calm, methodical approach is appreciated by Jean Alesi, who echoed the comments made by his former Ferrari boss Fiorio. Jean Alesi, who raced for the Maranello team for five years (1991 – 1995) worked with Cesare Fiorio just for four F1 events in his first year with Ferrari, before for the first four races in ’91, just before the Italian was removed from the role.
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The French racing driver, who win the 1995 Canadian Grand Prix for Ferrari, feels that Mattia Binotto should be given the benefit of time to continue building a solid foundation, just like what former team boss Jean Todt needed to do between 1993 and 1996 before Ferrari were able to get involved in the title duel with Michael Schumacher in the 1997 season.
“What we have seen in the past at Ferrari when they won with Jean and Michael, they made something unique,” Jean Alesi explained in an interview with British daily newspaper The Guardian – “What Mattia Binotto is doing at the moment is building the team with new people, fresh blood, and honestly it takes time. So far they have been fantastic to make a quick car but now they are missing some little things to be perfect. They need time.” – Jean Alesi added.
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