According to Mattia Binotto, the Ferrari Team Principal, there is a sense of relief owing to the progress his side has made during the 2021 Formula 1 season.
After dropping to the sixth place in the constructors’ championship during a highly uncompetitive 2020 campaign, the Italian outfit is on the verge of bouncing back. This comes after its worst season in four decades.
The start of the new season was a highly positive event for Ferrari after earning double points finish at that Bahrain Grand Prix. The event saw Charles Leclerc taking sixth ahead of new teammate Carlos Sainz in eighth.
Talking about a sense of relief, Binotto mentions that the team may work in a better and healthy condition all the while staying calm and positive.
“I feel relieved, certainly, because we may work in a better position and that’s healthy for the team, It’s important that the team can work in a healthy condition, staying calm and positive,” he said.
While a healthy team dynamic is important to Binotto, seeing how the car has progressed has also had a profound impact on the team.
“For me that was important, so coming here and seeing the car has progressed, put the team somehow in a serenity, let me say, where we can even work in a better manner.”
Throughout 2020, Ferrari’s main weakness was a prominent lack in straight-line speed. But come 2021, it has managed to focus on developing a completely new engine, which according to Binotto is an absolute step towards a new direction.
“I think from our side, we progressed in all the areas that was possible,” he said.
The aero is certainly better in terms of behavior [and] correlations. But the power unit, the car overall, wherever it was possible to make improvements we tried to do them.”
Ferrari has always been in the limelight ever since an investigation into the operation of its controversial 2019 power unit. We can only wait and see what is in store for the team. Is 2021 going to be the defining moment for Ferrari? Let us know in the comments below!