”Barcelona Is the New Challenge”: Ferrari Threatens 2022 F1 Rivals Red Bull with Game-Changing News Ahead of Spanish GP

The inaugural Miami Grand Prix came to an end on Sunday with Max Verstappen taking the honors once again. Starting from P3, the Dutchman showed his quality as he overtook both the Ferraris in the early part of the race. Meanwhile, Ferrari, after a splendid start to the season, now see Red Bull closing the gap with 5 races completed.

The Milton-Keynes outfit clearly has a straight-line pace advantage over Ferrari. Red Bull’s reliability caused them issues which the Prancing Horse capitalized on in the early races. However, the Bulls seem to have found a solution ahead of the Imola GP.

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With Verstappen having the momentum on his side, Ferrari and Leclerc will look to bounce back in Spain. So, they are preparing for an upgrade ahead of the race in Catalunya. Mattia Binotto revealed his thoughts on the upgrade and spoke about the difference between them and Red Bull.

Mattia Binotto reflects on the upgrade in place for the F1-75

As the Miami heat boiled down onto the track, Leclerc’s Ferrari struggled to match Verstappen. The reigning champion was in a league of his own after overtaking the Monegasque, and it concerned Ferrari, without a doubt.

After a tough evening, Mattia Binotto revealed the team is preparing for an upgrade in Barcelona. “It will be an important package, not the most important of the season. It will be a technical confrontation that will go on for a long time and it won’t be a single innovation that makes the difference,” he said.

Verstappen’s results have been dominant, to say the least. Despite reliability issues, he is still only 19 points behind Leclerc. The Maranello-based outfit will hope the upgrade can shift the momentum back to their side.

Binotto reveals the difference between Red Bull and Ferrari

With the newly introduced budget cap in play, the teams can only spend a particular amount of money on upgrades and developments. Binotto says Red Bull has spent more and, as a result, feels the Prancing Horse has the upper hand.

The Italian stated, “But I also think that at some point Red Bull will have to stop developing, otherwise it would not explain how they do it with the budget cap. We monitor the changes that Red Bull brings to each race & make an estimate of the costs: so far they have spent more than us.”

Further, the Ferrari team principal believes the difference between the two is less and they can catch up to the Bulls.

“The differences [between us and RB] aren’t big, we’re talking about two tenths of a second, which in F1 isn’t much. Our developments will come, Barcelona is the new challenge. We have to make sure that everything we have planned works. As it has happened this winter,” he conveyed.

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With Ferrari struggling to match Red Bull in terms of pace, will the upgrades allow the Reds to have the upper hand? We will have to wait and watch.