Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto explains five-year journey back to top end of F1
It's taken half a decade and a pandemic for it to happen, but Ferrari are finally back at the top of Formula 1.
In an exclusive interview with BBC Sport, Binotto for the first time explains in detail the journey that has brought the sport's most famous team back to competitiveness.The controversy over the legality of their engine in 2019Their 2022 title challengeThe story of Ferrari's return to title contention starts five years ago, when they were last in a similar position.
By the end of the season, the then-team boss Maurizio Arrivabene was unable to provide a convincing explanation as to what had gone wrong, and soon he was gone, replaced by Binotto.Vettel crashed out of the 2017 Singapore Grand Prix, along with team-mate Raikkonen, at the beginning of the race - the first time ever Ferrari had to retired both cars on an opening lap of a grand prix
At the end of 2018, the veteran Kimi Raikkonen was jettisoned after five unconvincing seasons and replaced by Leclerc, who had just one season with Sauber under his belt. But Ferrari's rivals were suspicious. They felt Ferrari's engine was too good, and after Red Bull secured clarifications from governing body the FIA on technicalities to do with fuel flow before the US Grand Prix that November, Ferrari's run of poles dried up.private settlement with the team.
"In that year, Ferrari was not the only one losing power on the grid. Most of the manufacturers lost power at that time. But we were the ones losing power the most and that put us from being at an advantage to a clear disadvantage. "We had no opportunity to improve the car during the season itself," Binotto says. "It was a difficult moment, because I don't think the fans understood it - or, generally speaking, the people looking at F1."
"We worked a lot on that," Binotto says. "It is taking the error more as an opportunity of a lesson learned, rather than blaming and pointing fingers. "But you cannot do well in both," he says, adding that it took at least a year to restructure the team. "It's only then we moved into an organisation where I was no longer technical director, but we have clear responsibilities."
"The team is people, culture, tools and methodology," he says. "The car is simply the product of the team, starting in 2017 with a good base, but not with the right experience, skills and tools. Since then, step by step going through 2019, 2020, we have got to where we are today.
For all the focus on Ferrari's technical advances, though, a key part of their current success is the man in the cockpit. The gamble on Leclerc's potential in 2019 has more than paid off.
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