The 2022 F1 Austrian GP's strategy decisions that put Max Verstappen under a lot of pressure were praised by Ferrari team manager Mattia Binotto.
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The Scuderia got its act together during the 71-lap race last Sunday after being thoroughly dominated during the second Sprint race of the season. Ferrari called in Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz as a retaliatory move against the Dutchman during each of its pit stops because it knew it had a faster vehicle around the Red Bull Ring than Verstappen. In the race, Leclerc was able to pass Red Bull’s current world champion three times, earning him his first victory since the Australian Grand Prix of 2022. If Sainz hadn’t experienced a catastrophic engine failure in the closing laps of the race, he too might have finished ahead of Verstappen on the podium.
In a post-race interview, Mattia Binotto acknowledged that he felt anxious when Charles Leclerc was overheard complaining about throttle pedal troubles with his Ferrari F1-75 near the end of the race. Italian speaker: “Honestly, I don’t know. I heard about it. We looked at the data but we need to wait for the car. Try to work what was it, was it mechanical? Myself? I stopped watching the race at that time. I was not [even looking at the timing screens]. [I was] looking around. Certainly very happy because now it’s two wins in a row at Silverstone and now here in Austria.”
“The drivers did a fantastic job, both of them. They were doing very well. They put pressure on Max at the start of the race which I think was the difference compared to yesterday in the Sprint race. So we decided that the best was trying to keep pressure on him, force him somehow to go fast and somehow try to wear their own tyres and I think it worked well. We put pressure on Red Bull and that was what we were hoping for.” Binotto further added.
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Ferrari is a United team
Charles Leclerc denied any allegations that there was a fracture within the Ferrari team following Carlos Sainz’s first Formula One victory last week at Silverstone. The Monegasque’s 2022 Formula One British Grand Prix weekend did not go as planned because he lost out on a potential victory due to a perplexing Ferrari strategy call. Despite being in the lead heading into the last 10 circuits of the race, Leclerc felt constrained by Ferrari as he saw colleague Sainz win the race while he could only achieve P4.
Speaking to the media this week in advance of this weekend’s 2022 F1 Austrian GP, Charles Leclerc put an end to reports of intra-Scuderia strife after certain team members failed to appear in Sainz’s celebratory photo. He stated: “It is a shame to see all of this type of things. It is definitely not what is happening inside the team. We are a very united team, we’ve always been and it’s not these difficult races that will make it change. Were we disappointed after last weekend? I think we were because speaking about last weekend, we were one-two and we finished one-four so part of the team were disappointed. But this was definitely not the reason whatsoever for not everybody being on the picture.”
