Mattia Binotto, Ferrari, Spa-Francorchamps, 2020

Binotto rules out bringing back parts of last year’s Ferrari

2020 Belgian Grand Prix

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Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says the team cannot address its poor performance by bringing back parts from the car it raced last year.

The team endured a dire weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, where it won 12 months ago. The SF-1000 lapped slower than its predecessor managed last year and Ferrari failed to qualify or finish inside the top 10.

Binotto said the team’s poor pace was due both to a lack of power and poor aerodynamic efficiency. “Spa is a circuit where power is important as well as aerodynamic efficiency,” he added. “The car we developed this season is certainly more draggy.”

Using parts from last year’s car is not an option, according to Binotto. “The car is quite different,” he said. “The car itself it’s not a plug-and-play it’s not something that you take from one and you put on the other so that’s not possible.”

Ferrari were beaten by their engine customer Alfa Romeo in the race, which Binotto said indicates there is a further factor behind the team’s struggles this weekend they haven’t uncovered yet.

“Power and aero efficiency is the first part,” he said. “But that’s not sufficient to explain our performance of this weekend because anyway I don’t think that the pattern with our customer teams is where we are expecting to be.

“So there is something more which we are looking at which at the moment we do not [understand].”

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12 comments on “Binotto rules out bringing back parts of last year’s Ferrari”

  1. Well, Brawn managed to accommodate the Mercedes engine in a Honda engine bay in no time so Im sure if they get the old engine, it’ll be juuuuuust fine.

    1. They cant. I read somewhere its part of the settlement with FIA. Last year’s engine is “blacklisted”

      1. Yeah I read it in the settlement documents that last years engine can only be brought forward if the cheat they used to revealed publicly. So the cheat can be banned officially this time around.

      2. Ferrari’s customers can use that engine if needed and supplied them because it wouldn’t be their fault if Ferrari played gimmicks. The hack wasn’t specific with the engine because the Haas and Alfas didn’t reap Ferrari’s performance boost given Monza qualifying results last year. The hack was with feeding a higher fuel flow into the engine between pulses of the fuel flow meter. Legality wise, this engine may actually be better than last year’s engine when running within the rules. The higher drag this year may be compounding the issue. Basically Ferrari played themselves because their hack cost them engine development for 2019 and now they are back to building on performance from where they finished in 2018 engine wise while Mercedes, Renault, and Honda are in 2020 development.

  2. Of course they cant. Their 2019 car was garbage as well and they dont have the dodgy engine to hide it.

  3. Josh (@canadianjosh)
    30th August 2020, 21:31

    It has to be the engine along with a bad chassis this year. It’s sad to see but it is what it is, they just need to get their heads down and work it out. Every time they have bad years they sack managers just like the Yankees but I feel like Binotto is a good leader but they went wrong somewhere with this car.

    1. Binotto has a great persona @canadianjosh, very positive, encouraging, but his engine that we all thought was so great turns out to have been built on rule-bending, and the aero department that reports to him apparently doesn’t even know why the car has the drag figures it has. Vettel has so little confidence in the strategy calls he swears at his RE over the radio, and that is a studious 4x wdc who grew up in Red Bull.

      So if we separate the performance from the cuddly persona, I’m not sure we can call him a good leader.

      1. Ferrari always have leadership problems when they hire from within. Todt/Brawn were outsiders from Italy. Their strategists haven’t been good for years. They had a chance the last 3 years with decent strategists. I think they Wrote this year off to focus on 2021 spec and relied on their 2019 engine to carry them in to 2020 so they could focus development on the new era. They never anticipated 2021’s era to be pushed to 2022 introduction.

      2. What cuddly persona? He politcally removed Arrivabene to be promoted as team principal. If anything he is quite cunning to get things done his way but he is not a team principal material by light years.

  4. I’m sure they considered shelving the entire car and fitting the new engine to the old chassis before the season started but it’s probably not as efficient aero wise. I can’t possibly see what swapping out some parts for an older spec might do for them.

  5. Not last year’s car, they could do better by wheeling out a pair of the beautiful Lancia D50s from 1955.
    Arguably the most beautiful Formula One car ever – that would put on a show for us!

  6. “Grande Casino“ was the name for such
    in the old times with Niki Lauda when Mauro Forghiri , Nosetto , Sante Ghedini , Luca di Montezemolo tried to find solutions italien way….when Lauda left to Brabham
    they even kicked out Laudas chief mechanic as he was too loyal to his driver for the taste of those in charge…
    There was a reason why Barnard flatly refused to try to do things in italy ….
    Well we are in year 13 after their last championship already.

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