Binotto confirms the arrival of upgrades in Barcelona for Ferrari

She seemed to be the reference car when arriving in Bahrain for the first Grand Prix of the season in March. The F1-75 has since found a very serious competitor in Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez’s RB18. Because although it is difficult to know which of these two machines is actually the fastest, one thing is for sure, the Scuderia is not dominating the races with a master’s hand as some might have expected.

And without the reliability issues at Red Bull, the situation could have been much worse. To counter this increasingly fast RB18, Ferrari is going to be forced to bring its first real improvements of the season. Because in five races, the F1-75 has changed very little, with minor evolutions, while the pace of development seems more linear for the Austrians.

Once again in Miami, Red Bull seemed to be on top. Mattia Binotto acknowledges it. We can’t be completely happy with today’s race because, even though the F1-75 was competitive, our rivals were faster than us by a few tenths per lap. If you consider how many points we bring home from here, we can’t be too disappointed, given that we’re leading both championships, but it’s clear that we need to respond. We’re eager to get the job done and there are still many races to go.

For Binotto, development will inevitably be the key topic of this season. « It’s true that Red Bull has improved their car since the very beginning of the season. If I look at the last two races, maybe they were faster than us by a few tenths per lap. There is no doubt that in order to keep up the pace, we need to develop with new improvements. »

And in this race for development, Binotto hopes to have the advantage thanks to the budget cap. « I hope, because of the budget cap, that at some point Red Bull will stop developing, otherwise I wouldn’t understand how they can do it. But we will see in the next races. »

« It could be our turn to try to develop the car as much as we can by introducing improvements, and I think it’s not surprising that we might have a package in Barcelona, which will be important for us. As usual, I hope that the package we introduce works as planned and in this case, it could be a good boost in our goal of trying to catch up with Red Bull.

» This could be our turn to try to develop the car as much as we can by introducing improvements, and I think it’s not surprising that we might have a package in Barcelona, which will be important for us. As usual, I hope that the package we introduce works as planned and in this case, it could be a good boost in our goal of trying to catch up with Red Bull.