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Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto attributed his team's poor performance at the 2022 Hungarian GP to the F1-75's lack of performance in cooler temperatures. The team seemingly made a brutal strategic error, having pitted title contender Charles Leclerc for hard compound tires in the second half of the race.
The Prancing Horse's strategic calls have been under public scrutiny for some time now, with erroneous decisions being made on more than one occasion. The team failed to capitalize on Red Bull's poor grid positioning at the end of Saturday's qualifying, finishing fourth and sixth on the grid on Sunday.
Binotto claims that while the team might have gotten Charles Leclerc's tire choice wrong, it didn't get its team strategy wrong in Hungary. The Italian explained that the team expected the Monegasque driver to be fast on the hard compound tires at the end of the race. Instead, the Ferrari driver had to be pitted again due to his dismal race pace.
Mattia Binotto told the media:
“During the race and looking at what’s going on, we have as well looked at what was happening with the other hard tyres. We took all considerations, we discussed what would have been best and that’s the choice that we made. It certainly was not the right one today.’’
The Ferrari boss spoke about the cool conditions on Sunday, claiming that the temperature affected his team's performance. He said:
“It’s important to say that we believe that the car was not working as expected. We didn’t have the speed we were hoping for looking back at Friday, and the pace we had in the race conditions on Friday. So today was certainly different conditions, a lot cooler.’’
Fans question Ferrari's strategic calls at the 2022 Hungarian GP
Strategic blunders galore for Ferrari as the team's dubious pit calls negatively affected Charles Leclerc yet again in his title bid. The team brought in the race leader at the time for a set of hard compound tires, which had already been proven to be tough to manage in the 70-lap race in Hungary. As a result, the driver that was destined to win the race at one point ended up finishing the race in P6. To make matters a lot worse for the Monegasque driver, his main title rival Max Verstappen pulled off a stellar drive, winning the race despite having started in P10. Red Bull is now nearly 100 points clear of the Scuderia in the Constructor Standings.
The Tifosi were understandably unhappy with their team's poor strategic calls and swarmed Twitter with their reactions. Here are some Tweets from fans:
“Ferrari is an absolute joke. Carlos and Charles need to join together and make their own team. Absolute garbage strategy as usual. Us fans could do a better job.’’
“My Sundays are getting ruined on a weekly bases now, cheers’’
“We are hiring 2 experienced drivers and 1 team boss for Ferrari Team. For applications: Headquarter, Ferrari SpA, headquarters and factory, Via Abetone Inferiore n. 4, I-41053 Maranello (MO), Phone: +39 0536 949111’’
With the sport having stopped all activities for its summer break, fans of the Italian team can only hope that it rectifies its strategic problems and comes back stronger for the 2022 Belgian GP.
