Scuderia Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto wanted to excessive enthusiasm among the Ferrari fans after the positive indications that emerged regarding the team’s F1-75 car in the first 2022 Formula 1 pre-season testing session which ended on Friday at the Montmelò track.
The Scuderia has brought home a considerable amount of data for development and the feedback from the track is positive with regards to the quality of the project, which has not shown any particular issues. Reliability was also strong for Ferrari, who was able to complete more laps than any other team at the Circuit de Catalunya.
For the rest, Mattia Binotto prefers to keep a low profile and expects “surprises” from the competition in Bahrain (Mercedes will bring a deeply revised W13) so he doesn’t want to talk about the F1 pecking order for the start of the season: “We are happy, first of all because we managed to cover many laps. We got to know the car and collected a lot of data, but if we talk about lap times, I think it’s too early. In tests, each team runs in different conditions, and everyone is faster than what we have seen these days. It was important for us to run many kilometers and collect as much data as possible, now we will return to Maranello and we will have a few days available for analysis before leaving for Bahrain. The goal now is to try to optimize the car in view of the next tests”. – he explained.
The position of the Maranello team is clear, but it is curious to record the different ways in which Ferrari is perceived by its rivals, Mercedes and Red Bull in the first place.
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Mercedes boss Toto Wolff, who expects a competitive F1-75 car, came up with a phrase that led to a bit of anxiety even in his own team, especially in Brixworth, where the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains are based: “There is a clear feeling that Ferrari currently has the best engine on the grid.” A phrase that has the purpose of putting pressure on the Maranello team ahead of the 2022 Formula 1 season in which everybody hopes there will also be a new protagonist as compared to the last two years.
Helmut Marko’s analysis was totally opposite: “The Ferrari certainly looks solid, but how much fuel did it have on board?”.
The Austrian consultant of Red Bull is never a man of many words and this time “focuses” on who could get involved in the fight for the world title alongside Red Bull and Mercedes. Marko, unlike Toto Wolff who sees a Ferrari capable of fighting for the title, has a different view and tries to “demolish” the ambitions of the red team.
The lapidary sentence stated in a recent interview for German magazine Auto Motor und Sport, however, is symptomatic of a situation: Red Bull does not believe the F1-75 will be able to challenge for the titles and believes their fight will only be once again with Mercedes or this is Helmut Marko’s classic way to destabilize an opponent who is trying to raise his head. In Sakhir we will have the first answers …
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