The disappointed looks under the podium clearly show the mood at Ferrari after the 2022 Miami Grand Prix. Despite the front row scored in qualifying on Saturday, Red Bull came out clearly on top in race pace, taking home their third win out of five races with Max Verstappen (who retired in the other two races). The Safety Car actually reopened the race with eleven laps to go, as Charles Leclerc looked to be able to regain the lead of the race in the final stages of the Miami Grand Prix, but the straight line speed of the RB18 proved decisive as Max Verstappen was able to defend and win the race, also scoring the extra point for the fastest lap.
“I’m not satisfied, we wanted to win” – Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto commented immediately after the race – “We must continue to work and develop the car because Red Bull has shown that it has a couple of tenths on us in the last two races. They developed the car since the beginning of the season, which we didn‘t really. Red Bull spent money, so I hope at some stage with the budget cap, they will stop developing while we will still have some upgrades available. Both drivers were excellent: Charles had a great race, Carlos recovered well after Friday and managed to defend against Sergio Perez. After five races, we are still leading both championships. As you said, we have not developed since the start of the season, we will have some upgrades certainly in Barcelona. And I hope that those upgrades will put us back in a closer fight” – he explained.
“The speed on the straights is for both attacking and defending, but they are also fast in the corners. Now it’s up to us to develop and we must reach their step” – Mattia Binotto continued – “Barcelona is a high downforce track, we will have a dedicated wing for this and we will see who will win, also because we expect updates also from Red Bull. I am sure we can react, we are not satisfied with the second and third positions. In Spain we will bring a package that we have been working on since the beginning of the season: we will see if it works, this is always the doubt and the hope of the engineers.” – the Ferrari boss said.
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Mattia Binotto then reflected on one of the decisive moments of the race, the start: “We can’t say now if it was decisive. As I said, Max was a couple of tenths faster per lap, that’s why I feel that even if he remained third at the start, he would still have passed us. We have to recover to be able to fight again at the next race, two tenths are not much” – he concluded.
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