After Criticism, Ferrari Take a U-Turn on Exit Threats Issued by Mattia Binotto

Scuderia Ferrari has released an official statement in response to Mattia Binotto’s remarks regarding the team’s future in F1. Yesterday, Binotto warned that Ferrari could walk away from F1 over its budget cap crisis. As a result, many publications began reporting news of a potential exit for the Scuderia from Formula 1.

What did Binotto say?

For the unaware, F1 is the midst of a budget cap debate between all the teams. The smaller teams want a revision to the current cap which stands at $175M, while the bigger teams are opposing the change. Allegedly, teams have agreed to lower the cap to $150M but the midfield wants a bigger reduction. As a result, the top 3 are at odds with the smaller teams over the financials of the sport.

In a recent interview, Binotto suggested that Ferrari could explore other options away from F1 if the cap goes against the team’s best interests.

“The $145m level is already a new and demanding request compared to what was set out last June.

 “It cannot be attained without further significant sacrifices, especially in terms of our human resources. If it was to get even lower, we would not want to be put in a position of having to look at other further options for deploying our racing DNA,” said Binotto as quoted by The Guardian.

The remark led to widespread speculations and rumors, forcing Ferrari to issue an official clarification.

Ferrari issues official response

“We would like to clarify what Mattia said in his interview with published yesterday night,”

“He never mentioned about Scuderia Ferrari quitting F1, on the contrary, he said that we would not want to be put in a position of having to look at further options,”

“Besides continuing racing in F1, for deploying our racing DNA, in case the budget cap would be even more drastically reduced, putting at risk hundreds of workplaces” reads Ferrari’s official statement.

Ferrari claimed a misleading headline caused the misunderstanding in the first place. The Maranello outfit added that the publication responsible corrected the offending article after publishing it.

Regarding the cap, Binotto’s suggestion is to introduce separate caps for engine supplier and customer teams. Teams recently concluded a meeting a few days back over the budget cap but failed to reach common ground.