Mattia Binotto is not focusing on what happens with Red Bull amid the 2022 F1 battle, as he doesn’t blame Charles Leclerc for French GP incident.
Even though Red Bull started the 2022 F1 season with considerable amount of points loss, the team has since recovered to go ahead of Ferrari both in constructors’ and drivers’ standings. Both have suffered with reliability issues, but more so Ferrari.
Both Leclerc and Carlos Sainz have had to take fourth power unit elements and there’s still good amount of races to go through. The Red Bull side has seen issues too, but so far they seem to be safe and have the points advantage on both ends.
To gain back the points, Ferrari might need some issues for Red Bull and some luck to go on their end, but Binotto is not focusing much on what happens with them. Naturally, he thinks it is not in their hands as to what happens with their rivals.
“First I don’t know, because I’m not counting points,” said Binotto. “And if you would have asked me before France what was the gap to Red Bull or Max, I couldn’t answer to you because I’m not looking. What we are focused on is trying to go at each single race and get the maximum results from it. And it didn’t happen in Paul Ricard.
“Again, I think we’re already focused on Hungary going there for a 1-2. Each single race counts as much as the others. At the end of the season we will do the sum. Let’s see where we are. What’s more important to see in France was, once again, is the good package. There is no reason why not to win 10 races from now to the end.
“That is the way to look at it positively. I like to be positive and to stay optimistic. Could something happen to Max and to Red Bull. It already happened to them as it happened to us. Maybe it happens as well. But I’m not counting on it. I think we need to be focused on ourselves and do the best,” summed up Binotto.
While the team lost points in France, the biggest to lose them was Leclerc whose minor mistake ended his hopes of winning the grand prix. Binotto is not blaming the Monegasque for it, as things are not always as straight as it looks like to be.
“It’s a bit of an unfair judgment,” said Binotto. “I agree with you it’s unfair. Charles was driving certainly at the limit. So, there are things that may happen when you’re driving to the limit and reasons why it happened. If there is anything else, at Ferrari, we take our time with him to discuss and to judge.
“At the moment there is no reason to blame Charles. I’m pretty sure that Charles will learn. We have always seen that Charles is reacting very strongly and well to when he’s doing mistakes. And I’m pretty sure that Charles will be back in Hungary stronger and hungry,” summed up Binotto, who stresses that he has full faith on Leclerc.
“I said to Charles that things are more complicated, but not impossible,” said Binotto. “We will enjoy more in case we can turn it into a victory at the end. So, we need to stay focused at every single race. If I look back over the last races, we had always a great potential. It didn’t turn out into the best results in terms of championship points.
“Right now, there is no reason why in the next 10 races this cannot happen. So, the potential is there. The drivers are fantastic. I am pretty positive. And as I said, lucky enough in seven days time… we compete again in Hungary,” summed up Binotto.
Here’s Carlos Sainz, Mattia Binotto on Ferrari strategy
Here’s Max Verstappen on pace encouragement against Charles Leclerc
Here’s Charles Leclerc and Mattia Binotto on the mistake
