Ferrari Acknowledges Mercedes’ Superior Speed

The Scuderia Ferrari team is seemingly close to conceding defeat with four races done already. According to Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto, Mercedes has a “slightly better” Formula 1 car. However, he believes that the gulf between the two teams is not a true reflection of their pace.

During pre-season testing, Scuderia Ferrari looked like one of the favourites to challenge Mercedes. However, the start to the 2019 season has been less than spectacular. While Ferrari floundered, Mercedes needed no second invitation and chalked up 4 consecutive one-two finishes.

As a result, Mercedes rocketed to a 74-point buffer to Ferrari in the constructors’ championship. Inspite of all this, Binotto firmly believes that Ferrari have yet to extract the best out of its SF90.

“I think that obviously four races into the season, no win for Ferrari, four wins for Mercedes, no doubt they are very strong,” Binotto said.

“Certainly they’ve got a slightly better car, but I think that the gap is not so big and the points of the result are not reflecting the true potential of the cars.

“We had the potential for pole [in Baku], and if you’ve got a car fast enough to score potentially the pole, you’ve got a good car overall.

“In the race, yes, we weren’t as fast as them, but we didn’t finish 20 seconds behind.

“The updates work as expected. These are only the very first one. A few updates are expected as well in the next races, so we will not stop here. Out hopes definitely are that we can do a better job in the future.”

According to Binotto, Ferrari will be shipping in more upgrades for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix. The team boss stressed on the importance of keeping an eye on Ferrari’s own performance instead of rivals.

“Mercedes is very strong at the moment and I’m pretty sure they will be very strong as well in Barcelona,” he added. “But more important I think is being focused on ourselves.

“We need to look at our weaknesses and try to address them. I’m pretty sure we’ve got plenty of data coming from the weekend [in Baku]. We have faced different situations.

“So there’s a lot to learn from here. Then in Spain, pretty sure that many teams will bring aero package or car developments, so that will be again a different balance compared to what we’ve seen so far in the season.”