The friendly Italian who appeared on screen in the early evening to talk about La prossima grande catastrophe to give a lecture seemed changed. What exactly was different? As always, Mattia Binotto wore the red Scuderia Ferrari overalls, along with the glasses with the large, round lenses that make his eyes appear even larger and more good-natured, he also sounded the same as always: his voice ranged gently from the mountain to the valley.
Like his racing cars this season. Binotto, this rhetoric maestro, has the gift of explaining in many colorful words to the gnashing Ferraristi that his team had done nothing wrong, although the television cameras had once again documented live and in color everything that had gone wrong.
So what was different? Nothing directly audible, certainly nothing visible. The strategy behind the legend that he was now dishing up was new: this time Binotto distracted from a mistake by saying: All of a sudden our car was so bad that it doesn’t matter that we gave our world championship candidate Charles Leclerc at the wrong time strapped on the wrong tires. It’s quite logical! What role do errors play when the entire vehicle is a single error? The team boss spoke: “For the first time this season we didn’t have a winning car. We were too slow and would not have been successful with any strategy.”
It is with this legend that Mattia Binotto, born 52 years ago in Lausanne, now bids his team farewell to the Formula 1 summer break. His people should breathe deeply for three weeks in the 14th season since Scuderia’s last world championship title in 2008, at the end of which it is very likely that no trophy will go to Maranello again. Hopefully enough time to work through what was worse: car or strategy mistake.
Verstappen leads comfortably – a butter ride to the title awaits him
There is little hope left for the Italians after Max Verstappen stormed all the way up the field in his Red Bull from tenth on the grid on Sunday in Hungary. Despite a 360 degree spin, despite problems with the clutch. And that despite the fact that the red cars were by far the fastest in the 13th race of the season on Friday. Also on the winding Hungaroring, whose course with many slow corners suits Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
Leclerc is 80 points behind Verstappen, with nine Grand Prix remaining. In 72 years of Formula 1, no driver has ever made up such a deficit. Even if Verstappen only came second consistently from now on and Leclerc won everything, that wouldn’t change anything. After he had to endure a thriller up to the last lap in the last race in the title fight with Lewis Hamilton last year, this time the Dutchman can expect a butter ride to the title.
And if it’s supposed to be fun on this tour, then Verstappen will experience a humorous supporting program in which the reinvigorated Mercedes squad will intercept the Scuderia and come second in the constructors’ championship. The Silver Arrows are just 30 points behind Ferrari.
Pleasure ride: Max Verstappen stormed to the front in Hungary with his Red Bull from tenth on the grid – despite a 360-degree spin and despite problems with the clutch.
(Photo: Dan Mullan/Getty)
The air temperature at the track had literally plummeted during the three days of racing. It was hot and stuffy on Friday, cool and rainy on Saturday, even cooler – 14 degrees Celsius – during the race on Sunday. Also very windy. The flags posted on the start and finish straight tugged at their poles like wild chain dogs. The changeable weather is often an issue at the Hungaroring.
The race engineers hate such variable conditions because they can’t test the cars in post-race conditions before the race. But there were many warnings before Leclerc’s fatal pit stop that the hardest tire compound, which cost Leclerc at least the podium and probably also victory, would not work on the Hungaroring. More warnings than there are warnings in the Book of Revelation.
To put it bluntly, many noticed that it was getting colder and put on a sweater. All except Ferrari. And now everyone is sneezing and blowing their noses in Maranello.
Mercedes had already failed to get the hard tires up to temperature on warm Friday and decided not to touch them in the race. Red Bull originally intended to start with them in Sunday’s race – but scrapped the plan because they felt weird on the formation lap. “We thought: We’re not doing that! We’re driving on the soft!” Verstappen reported afterwards in a brilliant mood.
And there was one last warning that Binotto and his strategists overlooked: Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon’s Alpines switched to the white rubber, i.e. the hard tires, a few laps before Leclerc – and their lap times dropped dramatically. Former world champion Jacques Villeneuve even asked in a column whether they would not follow their own race at Ferrari: “It is incomprehensible that something like this can happen in a sport where only the best of the best work.”
Balance of the horror of the Scuderia: from strategy mistakes to smoking engines
Now it is idle to lose yourself in the small-small of a race. But it’s worth taking a look, because the specific wrong decision made by the Scuderia in Hungary shows on a small scale what the team is missing on a large scale. An overview, attentiveness, consultation and the courage to make the right decision. Also with a certain wit. Unlike Mercedes and Red Bull, they put the hard tires on their top driver Leclerc, although he advocated rolling longer on his medium-hard ones and then later only putting on the very soft rubbers.
“The hard things were the killer,” Leclerc later complained, his eyes blank, his voice quiet. Verstappen passed Leclerc twice (because he fell back again after a driving error). In the end, they cost him another pit visit, slowing him down by 20 seconds plus six seconds on track. You know that because Leclerc calculated these 26 seconds himself. In order to better process the embarrassment, which was not his fault. 16 seconds behind Verstappen, he finished sixth.
The record of horror for the Scuderia was quickly handed in later: In the past eight races, Leclerc was only on the podium once, in the victory in Spielberg. In each of the others, Ferrari shot itself into the gas foot: in Barcelona Leclerc’s drive unit failed, in Monaco the strategists chose the wrong strategy, in Baku the engines smoked, in Canada he started from the back because of an engine change, in Silverstone the strategists preferred his teammates, in Le Castellet he rammed his car into the gang. And now the drama on the wrong tires.
“We have to get better as a team and understand what we did wrong,” said Leclerc. Binotto also says: “We have to learn the right lessons from this race.”
In Italy, in Ferrari’s emotional environment, more and more observers are asking themselves: When will someone else draw the right lesson for the friendly Mattia Binotto?