F1 | Binotto: “Ferrari already focused on 2022”
Mattia Binotto, the team principal of Ferrari, has admitted in a recent interview that the team has already began their preparations for the big regulation changes of 2022.
Although we just began the 2021, with only two races behind us and many more to come, it cannot be denied that 2022 is definitely a season anticipated by many, not only the fans but the drivers and manufacturers. With the biggest technical and aerodynamic changes in years, many teams either already started to work on the next years car, or will do so soon, which will obviously have an impact on the improvements and developments for their current machines.
In a recent interview with selected media, Mattia Binotto, the team principal of Scuderia Ferrari, has said that his team already began the preparations for 2022, but they will still introduce upgrades to their current car till at least June.
As he said: “I think the car for 2021 is where we were expecting, so good correlations with our data which is great. Is it time to switch to 2022? We already switched from January so the team is already focussed on next year. We will have still some development on 2021 but that’s not our priority.”
"We are happy with our progress. It’s going to be a tight battle with McLaren for third place. Our objective is to still prove that we can progress in all the areas and improve in areas. It's simply a matter of mentality.” He added.
Compared to the previous season, Ferrari is already doing much better than they did in 2020. For a reason that season was possibly the worst the Scuderia had in the past 40 years, but it seems that they were able to counter some issues during the development stages for 2021. The car appears way more stable and faster than its last year predecessor, but if Ferrari actually wants to engage in any fight with McLaren for the 3rd position, they will definitely need to bring a couple of upgrades in order to be able to.
Although both Leclerc and Sainz are doing a stellar job in the red cars, they are currently unable to engage in any close fight with the papaya cars from Woking, which are once again a strong contender for the podium in constructors championship.
Nevertheless, if the promises of upgrades till June 2021 will be true, that will surely have a positive impact on the performance of the team from Maranello.
