"They are missing some little things" - Here's why Ferrari must give more 'time' to Mattia Binotto despite poor results, according to former F1 driver

Former F1 driver Jean Alesi believes that Mattia Binotto and Ferrari will need some time to work on the reliability issues that have cost the team significant championship points over the first half of the season. The Italian team principal has received plenty of criticism over the past few months for the strategic errors made by the team, with many suggesting he be fired. However, Alesi defended Binotto with regards to this matter, suggesting that he is working on "building the team".

As reported by The Guardian, the French racing driver spoke about Ferrari's current situation and his continuing faith in the team. He said:

“What we have seen in the past at Ferrari when they won with Jean and Michael, they made something unique. What Binotto is doing at the moment is building the team with new people, fresh blood and honestly it takes time. So far they have been fantastic to make a quick car but now they are missing some little things to be perfect. They need time.”

Speaking about Charles Leclerc's chances of making a strong comeback after the summer break for a real shot at his maiden F1 world championship title, he added:

“The race he did in Silverstone with front wing damage and the way he overtook Lewis in Copse? That is Formula One. He has the capacity to very soon be a world champion.”

While the Monegasque could still potentially challenge Max Verstappen for the title, a whopping 80 points currently separate the two in the Driver Standings.

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Ferrari's strategy not a weakness, says team principal

Despite the many points that Ferrari have lost due to pure misjudgements and poor strategy over the course of the first half of the season, especially in races such as the Monaco GP and more recently, the Hungarian GP, team principal Mattia Binotto defended the strategy team, emphasizing that it is not a weakness.

In an exclusive interview with Motorsport.com, Binotto said:

“I think there's always a way of improving ourselves. You cannot be perfect, and you will never be perfect. So no doubt, we need to improve ourselves on the aero, chassis, power unit, on strategy or whatever we can. But having said that, I think I have got a great team on the strategy, and I do not feel it's a weakness.”

He added:

“While maybe you may see Monaco, Silverstone and Paul Ricard as issues, I don't see them as issues, because I think we made sometimes the right decisions. I'm not convinced right now that what we made was wrong. I am still convinced that we made what was the right decision at the time. Unlucky sometimes, but not wrong. And I think if you look at our strategy team, sometimes they are doing even great things, even greater than the others. We had the right strategy in Austria and the others not. We had probably the best strategy in France before the mistake of Charles.”

Ferrari now have a 97-point deficit to Red Bull who are now comfortably leading the Constructor Standings. It will be interesting to see if the Scuderia can make a comeback after the summer break.