The Italian team has drifted away from the Mercedes team that set the pace this year, and needs to step up to start regularly challenging even the podiums.
After a difficult Hungarian Grand Prix, team principal Mattia Binotto confessed that the start of the year had been worse than the team feared after the tests, and it was clear that everything was on the table in terms of what it had to be done differently.
“I think we saw in Barcelona [testing] we weren’t fast enough, but we weren’t expecting such a difficult situation, “Binotto said after the Hungarian Grand Prix.” So it certainly is worse compared to expectations.
“With three races in a row, there are a couple of weeks before Silverstone and it will be important at Maranello to consider all aspects of the car and the organization – whatever we need to improve on.”
Motorsport.com reported last weekend that Ferrari’s top management is open to the idea of infrastructure changes, perhaps with the addition of a high-ranking figure as a new chief technical officer in a bid to help support Binotto better.
Binotto said the priority for Ferrari was to understand where it had gone wrong with its SF1000. While an update he introduced in the second Austrian race had improved the car, it still wasn’t enough.
“I think the updates we brought to Austria improved the correlation between the wind tunnel and the track,” added Binotto.
“At least we address those points. But the deficit in terms of performance is still there. We lack speed on the straights, and we lack speed on the curves. In general, the car has to be improved in all areas. It’s as simple as that “.
Binotto admitted that Ferrari’s hopes of progress were hampered by the effective car freeze imposed for the next two years, but felt it was too early to judge how much it will slow it down.
“Certainly not having full freedom will make our job more difficult,” he said. “I think we can only understand how much we can close the gap when we have fully understood the reason why we are so slow.
“I think it is too early a stage to know. So first we will focus on trying to understand the car and where we can make progress very soon. And I will answer your question later in the season.
Pushed on how long he felt it would take Ferrari to return to competitiveness, he said: “It will take a long time because it’s not something that will be addressed in a few weeks.” So I think patience will be required.
“As I said before, when you need to improve all areas, because we lack speed in all areas, it is not something that a simple trick will tackle or a simple solution or a simple package. It will take time. How long? I still don’t have the answer. “
