"Even Formula 2 teams or Formula 3 teams do a better job"- Former F1 champion lashes out at Ferrari over pit stop failure at Dutch GP

Former F1 world champion Nico Rosberg has lashed out at Ferrari for another operations failure during the Dutch GP on Sunday.

In the last few races, Charles Leclerc has been at the receiving end of Ferrari's strategic mistakes. On Sunday at Zandvoort, it was their other driver Carlos Sainz who suffered from a 12-second pitstop that compromised his race.

After another operations failure from the team, Rosberg lashed out at Ferrari for their lack of operational acumen. The German driver pointed out how the Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto keeps saying everything is fine, but the mistakes keep on happening.

Talking to SkyF1, Rosberg said that even Formula 2 and Formula 3 teams perform strategically beter than Ferrari.

“Oh my goodness. Mattia Binotto keeps saying ‘no, no, we don’t need to make any changes, everything is going well’," said Rosberg. "I mean, when is the day coming? It’s not possible (to carry on as it is). Even Formula 2 teams or Formula 3 teams do a better job at their strategy and pit-stops than Ferrari. So you’re in the pit and there’s no tyre in a normal race. At some point, they really need to start making some changes.”

Rosberg also pointed out a clear drop in the competitiveness of Ferrari, who were not only slower than Red Bull but also even behind Mercedes at Zandvoort. He said:

“Their car is just a little bit off the pace now as well in the races, especially we saw it at Spa; we saw it again here. So they are starting to lose out. They need to make sure they keep developing that car as well in the right direction."

Sainz finished a distant eighth, while his teammate - Leclerc finished third - almost 11 seconds behind winner Max Verstappen.

---

Ferrari in dire need of making personnel changes: Nico Rosberg

Rosberg pointed out that Binotto is in dire need of someone at the top of the chain. Before Binotto rose to the position of team principal, he had done an admirable job as the technical director.

Even this season, the team has produced a top car. However, it appears Binotto's technical excellence does not carry forward to the operational aspect of the team. According to Rosberg, the team needs to look at making personnel changes to make things better.

He said:

“One of the things people often say is Binotto is a technician, so sometimes you might suggest you need a joint leadership team of one being the technician and one being the business manager and people manager. That’s what some people have been suggesting. I don’t know Binotto well enough. But in any case, he needs to be making some personnel changes there, I feel, because it’s just going wrong too much."

In what should be considered a rather damning verdict of how bad things are at Ferrari right now, the former Mercedes driver said that commentators know that a mistake from the team is round the corner. He said:

"When we are commentating, we are just waiting for it to happen at the moment because we just know there’s the next mistake coming from Ferrari very soon. That’s not good. So they need to make some fundamental changes, I think, in their personnel or how people are working together there.”

The Italian team is under the pump this season for what has been a massive underachievement with the car they have at their disposal.