Ferrari hit out at rival teams for rejected tyre change: “The show would have benefited from it”. Mattia Binotto hits out at rival teams for rejected tyre change.

Mattia Binotto:

“Sebastian is really happy, although obviously he would be happier if he won races. But I think that his desire is to continue to race and compete and his dream remains to win with Ferrari. I see him totally involved in our project. Charles is becoming increasingly familiar with the team, with our way of working. He knows his mechanics and engineers better and feels as a key part of the team. At the beginning of the season everything was new for Charles. He had already raced a year in F1, but in Ferrari things are different. There is greater pressure and in his case he even has a very strong driver as a teammate. Charles had to figure out how to focus as much as possible on himself and after a few races I see that he is increasingly at ease with the team and his performances are gradually improving weekend after weekend.”

About the rejected tyre change:

Mattia Binotto: “From our point of view it’s a pity because the show would have benefited from it. It’s no secret that this year many teams have problems with them. The window is very small and this often leads to bigger and bigger gaps. The process of setting the tyres to be used [for a season] should also be improved because the teams don’t have much of a say in it. As a rule, FIA, F1 and the teams send Pirelli a target letter indicating the objectives (degradation, speed delta between compounds and other aspects), but this letter does not mean that we as a team can indicate to Pirelli the direction of development of the tyres. There are tests during the season and after the last race we can try the final version of the tyres on track, which will be used the following year. But the development is still left to Pirelli, not something on which the teams can give indications…The FIA can only intervene for safety reasons, while the teams can only ask for changes if they reach a majority of 70%. We don’t want to criticize Pirelli, but if as a team you want to try to change something you have to hope that 70% of the teams think like you do.”