The Maranello outfit had a perfect start to the season, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz finishing on top of the podium at the 2022 Bahrain Grand Prix. Let the landscape change as teams make improvements to their cars.
The situation is further complicated by the presence of the budget limit that F1 has, which means that teams cannot spend all the money they want to take steps forward on the track.
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto is aware of the risks of developments not working out, while suggesting there is still more pace to be wrung from the current F1-75.
“There is still potential in the car, for sure, but we have to develop it,” the Italian said after the Bahrain race.
“When you have a good base, and when you’re developing, you have to make sure that everything you’re bringing to the car is a step forward, and that’s even more important now that we have a cost cap, we can’t go wrong,” he said.
“We will only have a few development opportunities and whatever we do, we have to make sure they are the right ones and the right ones.”
Despite Ferrari’s start to the current season, Binotto still believes that Red Bull remains the favorite for the championship with so little difference in pace between them.
I think the others are very, very strong,” Binotto explained. “They were very strong in qualifying and it was really a matter of details.”
“I think in the race (the Red Bulls) they could have been stronger, but maybe they had some reliability problems or something that was not perfect in their car, from what we can understand from the radio communications. Otherwise, they would have been very fast.”
“And if I look at Max [Verstappen]’s first stint, on used tyres, he was keeping pace with Charles [Leclerc]. So I think we shouldn’t forget that they are the world champions, they are still the favourites, and I think What we can try is to do the best we can.”
“In a week’s time, Jeddah may give us a completely different picture, and I think we have to wait at least four or five races to see the real qualifying,” Binotto said.
