Ferrari doesn’t think victory was possible at the Hungaroring

Scuderia Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto doubts victory was actually possible for his team at the Hungarian Grand Prix, under the conditions in which the race was run.

If the attention of observers and fans has been focused since this Sunday afternoon on the way in which Charles Leclerc’s race collapsed once he switched to hard tires, even though he had taken control of the test shortly before, the director of Ferrari, Mattia Binotto as well as Carlos Sainz prefer to insist on the conditions in which the GP was held.

This Sunday was indeed a cool day and this obviously influenced the pace of the Ferrari F1-75s. Sainz, on a strategy without hard tires similar to that which brought Lewis Hamilton to second place, for example failed to reach the podium at the end of the GP. For Binotto, beyond the possible error concerning the choice of tires for Leclerc’s third stint, the performance was probably not even sufficient in itself to hope to win.

Thus, when he was simply asked if it was possible to win in Hungary, the Swiss-Italian technician replied: « I don’t think so. What we lacked today was really speed and pace. I don’t think we could have won today, and the reason [de cela] I do not know her. »

« Because it’s the first time in 13 races that we didn’t have the speed to get the win. We have to look at the performance first to understand. I’m sure we’ll understand that then, and we’ll also understand why the tires weren’t working properly. »

Friday, during free practice, Ferrari had shown a very good pace and seemed to be the team to beat on the long stints. « Based on Friday’s pace, it should have been an easy double »launched Carlos Sainz after the race, abounding in the direction of Binotto. « Today was a fight every lap. The car wasn’t balanced. I couldn’t attack […] I had a lot of trouble with it, and I’m not surprised to have finished P4 because the feeling in the car was quite bad.

« If you compare my pace on the softs with [celui de] Lewis, it’s clear we went from a much faster pace on Friday to a slower pace today. »he then added. « At the end of the day, we were stopping early because we were at the end [de la vie des pneus] before, and ultimately, yes maybe the pace wasn’t bad, but for 15 laps after that we were degrading. Today we have to analyze why these temperatures have affected us. »

« Friday I was pushing hard and there was no degradation, and today I couldn’t push and I had crazy degradation up front. For me, [le problème] was more the rhythm. I don’t know about the other car. Today for me it was all about the temperatures, a huge gap in performance that I didn’t expect. «