In Formula One you have to be brutally honest in your self analysis, whether as a team or a driver. Blaming circumstances apparently our of your control is merely blatantly making excuses. At the recent Belgian GP Lewis Hamilton in a rare moment of self-reflection accepted he was to blame for the incident which saw him collide with Fernando Alonso and ultimately out of the race.
Whoever wins the titles in 2022, the season’s story will be about how Ferrari have thrown away opportunity after opportunity. Yet the most surprising aspect of this is how team boss Mattia Binotto repeatedly refuses to accept his team have made mistakes.
Mattia Binotto, Ferrari’s principal during the afternoon session of the second day of F1 Test Days in Montmelo circuit. (Photo by Javier Martinez de la Puente / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)
Classic business management improvement philosophy embraces errors as the basis for improvement and learning, yet Ferrari at every turn refuses to accept the blatant errors they have made.
We could list the Ferrari mistakes this season but that would make an endless list of torture no Tiffs would wish to read. Yet simply at the Belgium GP in qualifying, the Red Team sent out their title contender Charles LeClerc in qualifying 3 to give his team mate the tow.
LeClerc was doomed to a back of the grid penalty given more Ferrari power unit failures and during the first run was tasked with towing his team mate round the 7km Spa circuit to give him pole.
However, the team made a mistake and put LeClerc on fresh soft tyres rather than a scrubbed set for what was to be a non competitive run.
LeClerc questioned the tyre decision and was told, “sorry we made a mistake” over pit radio. Clearly for a lap that was never intended to be competitive a set of scrubbed tyres would suffice.
The FIA had instigated a new technical directive for the Belgian GP to reduce proposing and it appeared that the Mercedes and Ferrari cars suffered in performance due to this.
Having languished around P4-P8, Ferrari decided they would give their title contender LeClerc an opportunity to gain an extra point for fastest lap. At the time the Monegasque driver was in P4.
The result was LeClerc rejoined the track with 2 laps to go a place down behind the fiesta Fernando Alonso. Whilst Charles overtook the Spaniard he failed to set the fastest lap by a monumental 0.6 seconds and then was penalised by the stewards for speeding in the pit lane.
This miserable set of events in effect cost Ferrari 3 points in their chase to catch Red Bull Racing.
Team Boss Mattio Binotto then mysteriously claimed the speeding violation was caused by a sensor failure caused by Max Verstappen’s discarded visor strip that lodged itself in LeClercs Ferrari.
Binotto has spent their season refusing to accept responsibility for a plethora of Ferrari errors, and to this end, the Red Team is learning nothing.
The Italian media are beginning to suggest Binotto should be removed as team boss simply because he appears deluded as to the problems within the Ferrari F1 team.
Binotto’s latest voice of hope suggests Ferrari will be better this weekend in Zandvoort, yet the evidence on how the Ferrari copes with high speed corners suggests he is deluded once again.
The Italian media are now baying for blood.
READ MORE: Ferrari demand better FIA scrutiny claiming Red Bull are breaching cost cap
You should do a story on the mechanics and field level management not liking the drivers.
You’re right. There is a rift between the drivers and the team. We just don’t have any quotable sources yet
Finally, next up? I can see the Corriere della Sera headlines now. Ferrari loses 2022 Championship due to incompetent decision making by Binnotto. What a shame!
Good riddance to the man
No serious talk of Binotto being sacked on Italian press, particularly on automotive press. on the contrary, lots of discussions on how Red Bull is blowing the budget cap, how british teams just looks for loopholes in the rules, and how FIA colludes with Liberty and is incapable of applying rules fairly.
Just wait. A disaster in Monza and everything will change. A win and podiums will buy Binotto more time
If Ferrari is not looking for loopholes in the rules it is not going to win. Cheating is another matter but I suspect it knows more about that than we’re supposed to think. Red Bull has no reputation to protect, Ferrari has, so blown engines don’t matter to RB, hence the speed differential. The rules, or rather the ineffective sanctions for breaking them, will give another championship to Verstappen.
Inspite of good pace i guess Ferrari has not managed itself well to give a tough fight to Redbull, it’s about managing the race day and Redbull has done that pretty well. They need to intropect on whats wrong with thr team as a whole to compete with tip contenders
Just remember folks Ferrari only has one single set of sensor for the speed and that is located in the front right wheel of their car, if ever it gets an error everything including the speedometer of the driver won’t properly work. Such a dumb excuse Binotto.