Binotto is perplexed as to why others have praised his team's potential when he believes it is impossible to know where everyone stands.
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Ferrari has looked impressive in both the Barcelona and Bahrain tests, with many claiming that it currently has the best package. While the Maranello team is optimistic that it has made significant progress in moving closer to the front over the winter, team boss Mattia Binotto said that any talk of it being the team to beat is inaccurate. Binotto is perplexed as to why others have praised his team’s potential when he believes it is impossible to know where everyone stands right now in preparation for the first race.
“I’m not myself capable of judging the others,” he said. “But we should be very good to judge ourselves and I don’t think we will be [the] winner.”
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“I think both Red Bull and Mercedes have very strong and fast cars, and those teams are very strong as well. I can see that even on the last day [of the test] Red Bull have brought upgrades to their car, proving and showing how good they are in the development, which is critical from now to the first race.”
“Maybe Mercedes as well will improve further. So they are very strong, very fast and I hope that we can be outsiders. I hope that we can somehow try to challenge them. That would be great from our side,” the Italian added.
While Ferrari has been particularly careful to keep its own expectations in check, driver Charles Leclerc admitted that the pre-season preparations have been the most productive he can recall since joining the team at the start of 2019.
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“It’s definitely one of the smoothest preparations I’ve had for a season, with no major issues,” the Monegasque said. “Especially on such a new project, you always expect to find some barriers on the way and for now, without porpoising, which is still kind of an issue in some conditions, it’s been quite smooth.”
“We managed to just keep improving. But as we’ve seen, I think Red Bull have quite a new package and Mercedes had a completely new car, and didn’t really show their potential. Everyone seems to be quite close at some point or another. So it’s very, very difficult to know how much they have in margin. We know how much margin we have, but we have no idea how much they hide their gains.”
