Mattia Binotto Blames Arch-Rivals for Ferrari’s Substandard Performances After the Budget Cap Controversy: “Red Bull’s Ability… Penalized Us”

Despite starting the year on a brilliant note, things didn’t work out quite well for Ferrari in 2022. Even though the Maranello-based team were hoping for a strong championship fight, they threw away the towel too soon as Red Bull picked up the driver’s championship already with four races to go. Mattia Binotto reveals further what didn’t work out for them this season.

The team from Italy had a rather perfect start to the season. With two wins in the first three races of the season, fans expected the old Ferrari to be back. With Mercedes already on the back foot, an evident Red Bull versus Ferrari looked to be on the brink. However, the Austrian team was too much for the Italians to compete with.

The F1 teams received a new directive from the FIA to combat the porpoising issue that has been haunting the teams from the beginning. However, Binotto said that it was not the technical directive that hurt them, but Red Bull’s performance.

Talking about this, the Italian boss revealed, “Already in Hungary we had lost our brilliance. It was not the TD [Technical Directives] that affected our performance, but Red Bull’s ability to develop their car penalized us.”

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The Swiss-born Italian further stated in a report published by Motorsport Italia, “We didn’t find as much performance as they did, but in the rest of the grid, apart from Mercedes that started further away, we kept our position… ”

Technical Directives aren’t the cause of Ferraris’s downfall

FIA released new technical directives to battle the porpoising issues that have been making headlines from the start of the 2022 season. As the sport came back after the mid-season break in Belgium, the teams had the time to work on the new set of directives after almost a month’s gap post-Hungarian Grand Prix.

Citing Red Bull’s untouchable performance and it was not the technical directive that hurt the Scuderia, Binotto further stated, “That there have been changes to the funds to apply the TD39 yes, that we have affected performance no.”

“I keep saying that, that was not the reason why we lost competitiveness, especially since Hungary came before Belgium,” concluded the Ferrari Scuderia team principal. The FIA directives come after repeated complaints from drivers about the side-effects of porpoising on their health.

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As the F1 world is hot on Red Bull breaching the 2021 budget cap, it’ll be interesting to see what penalty they get. As for Ferrari, their only wish will be to hold on to the P2 position in the constructors’ championship until the last race in Abu Dhabi.