Horner: You have to give credit to Mattia Binotto…

Christian Horner paid tribute to Mattia Binotto, as it was under his leadership that the Ferrari team built a very fast car, which allowed Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz to take 12 poles and four victories last season.

But Scuderia was summed up by problems with equipment reliability, miscalculations made by team strategists, mistakes by drivers, and at Maranello they couldn’t keep up with the pace of modernization of rivals’ equipment. This ultimately led to Binotto’s resignation, even though it was Ferrari’s best season since 2019.

“We have to give credit to Mattia because this year he has done a really good job of creating a very competitive car and an efficient engine,” Horner said at a press conference ahead of yesterday’s FIA gala in Bologna. – Although, of course, the team had failures in their work.

Binotto devoted a significant part of his career and life to Ferrari, and I am sure after all this it will be very difficult for him to say goodbye to the team. Of course, when you work in the Scuderia you are under enormous pressure, because it is not just a factory, but in fact a national team. Of course, the leader is under tremendous pressure.

I think their car was faster than ours at the start of the season, but we were able to overtake them, which was very important. For us, the championship consisted of 21 stages, because we actually missed the first race, as both our cars left the race.

But we didn’t want to let the rivals open a big gap, and one of the turning point weekends was Imola, where we won the sprint first, and then the race, having won the winning double. Since we beat Ferrari on their home track, psychologically it was very important for our team.”