Binotto to be sacked over Ferrari performance delusion

In Formula One you have to be brutally honest n your self analysis, whether as a team or a driver. Blaming circumstance apparently our of your control is merely an excuse. Lewis Hamilton in a rare moment of self reflection accepted he was to blame in the incident which saw him out if the Belgian GP last weekend.

Whoever wins the titles in 2022, the season’s story will be about how Ferrari have thrown away opportunity after opportunity. Yet the most surprising aspect of this is how team boss Mattia Binotto repeatedly refuses to accept his team have made mistakes.

Mattia Binotto, Ferrari’s principal during the afternoon session of the second day of F1 Test Days in Montmelo circuit. (Photo by Javier Martinez de la Puente / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)

Classic business management improvement philosophy embraces errors as the basis for improvement and learning, yet Ferrari at every turn refuse to accept the blatant errors they have made.

We could list the Ferrari mistakes this season but that would make an endless list of torture no Tiffs would wish to read. Yet simply at the Belgium GP in qualifying, the Red Team sent out their title contender Charles LeClerc in qualifying 3 to give his team mate the tow.

LeClerc was doomed to a back of the grid penalty given more Ferrari power unit failures and during the first run was tasked with towing his team mate round the 7km Spa circuit to give him pole.

However the team made a mistake and put LeClerc on fresh soft tires rater than a scrubbed set for what was to be a non competitive run.

LeClerc questioned the tire decision and was told, “sorry we made a mistake” over pit radio. Clearly for a lap that was never intended to be competitive a set of scrubbed tires would suffice.

The FIA ​​had instigated a new technical directive for the Belgian GP to reduce proposing and it appeared that the Mercedes and Ferrari cars suffered in performance due to this.

Having languished around P4-P8, Ferrari decided they would give their title contender LeClerc an opportunity to gain an extra point for fastest lap. At the time the Monegasque driver was in P4.

The result was LeClerc rejoined the track with 2 laps to go a place down behind the fiesta Fernando Alonso. Whilst Charles overtook the Spaniard he failed to set the fastest lap by a monumental 0.6 seconds and then was penalized by the stewards for speeding in the pit lane.

This miserable set of events in effect cost Ferrari 3 points in their chase to catch Red Bull Racing.

Team Boss Mattio Binotto then mysteriously claimed the speeding violation was caused by a sensor failure caused by Max Verstapan’s discarded visor strip that lodged itself in LeClerc’s Ferrari.

Binotto has sent there season refusing to accept responsibility for a plethora of Ferrari errors, and to this end the Red Team are learning nothing.

The Italian media are beginning to suggest Binotto should be removed as team boss simply because he appears deluded as to the problems within the Ferrari F1 team.

Binotto’s latest voice of hope suggests Ferrari will be better this weekend in Zandvoort, yet the evidence on how the Ferrari copes with high speed corners suggests he is deluded once again.

The Italian media are now baying for blood.

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