Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto will start skipping races going forward to focus on operations at Maranello, he’s revealed.
This season has seen the Italian team undergo structural changes in the wake of their worst performance on track for years, as an underpowered engine combined with a poor chassis has left them languishing in the midfield.
So bad is Ferrari’s year, they’re currently on course for their worst finish in the Constructors’ Championship since 1973 in P6, 31 points behind Racing Point and McLaren in tied-fourth.
“Certainly I think that to try to move up in the Championship will be great, but if you look at [Imola] we didn’t gain any points and we lost [ground] to one team,” Binotto said.
“The battle is very tight, but I think the car has improved. So we will try, and I think certainly our objective is to try to catch up someone.
“But there are only four races to go so it will be somehow very difficult.”
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As a result, recent races have seen Ferrari switch focus to next year, with a raft of upgrades laying the groundwork for the 2021 car.
And Binotto is confident that, combined with finally being able to improve their engine, will get the team back somewhere near where they were.
“We got the project wrong, looking for a path of development that turned out to be wrong. Then COVID arrived, stopping [work on the car], and this penalised us for the whole season,” he said of the issues in 2020.
“We had to comply with the measures that caused nine weeks of work stoppage, plus immediately afterwards it was decided to freeze the 2020 projects. I see this season in a different context than normal but we will be able to react.
“We have very challenging goals for 2021. I see a very united team that wants to do well. It feels the weight of responsibility and the desire to redeem itself.
“Next year we will have a completely new engine that is running well on the test bench.
“We have ideas about the car, but we can’t work miracles with wind-tunnel hours reduced compared to the past. But I’m sure this team is alive and we’ll take it a step further. Now it’s up to us to prove it.
“Realistically Ferrari will not be able to fight for the world title in 2021. Next year we have to go back to fighting regularly for the podium. That’s our goal.”
And to ensure the Scuderia remain on the right track, Binotto is going to focus as much as on the broader operation in Italy as he will at the track.
“I think, considering myself, you need always to balance your tasks at the racetrack and the factory,” the Ferrari chief explained. “The factory is important, where we are developing and preparing the cars.
“Myself too, I think I will not follow the races. Even in 2020, I am already considering skipping some of the races in the last part of the season, starting from Turkey.
“That is even more eventually next year because in the end, when you are responsible for an entire team, certainly the race event is important but the management of the entire team is more and more important.
“So by increasing the number of races there are judgements that need to be done.”
