“They are still my favourites” – Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto wants to wait for a few more races before labelling his team as one of the favourites for the title.
Ferrari rose from the ashes yesterday to win the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix in style, with Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz completing a 1-2.
Despite the dominating performance, team boss Mattia Binotto still believes Red Bull are the favourites this season. For those unaware, both Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez DNFed due to car failures.
“I think that the others are very, very strong.
“They [Red Bull] have proved to be very strong yesterday in qualifying. It was really a matter of details.
“I think today it could have been so good, but maybe they had some reliability issues or something that is not perfect on their car for what we may understand from the radio communications. And they would have been very fast otherwise.
“And if I look at the first stint of Max, on used tyres, he was keeping the pace of Charles. So I think we should not forget this was one of the world champions. They are still my favourites.”
Ferrari’s 13-year wait for world title
It’s been ages (read: more than a decade) since Kimi Raikkonen’s win for Ferrari. The greatest team in F1 history has since seen the likes of Red Bull and Mercedes take over the sport.
This could well be their year, finally, but Binotto wants to wait out for a few more races, starting with the Saudi Arabian GP.
“What we can try to do is to do our best. Jeddah in a week’s time can be a completely different picture and I think we need to wait at least four or five races before to assess.
“To answer your question, I would wait four or five races.”
