It’s fair to say that the 2022 Formula 1 season had its best and worst for Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto. He experienced the highs of brilliant wins and even a one-two in the season opener in Bahrain, but at the same time the lows of engine failures, driving errors and strategy blunders.
For some, this rollercoaster of emotions might be a little too much, but Binotto is driven by the belief that the team is pulling together behind the walls of the Maranello factory.
Yes, of course there were challenges and certainly things that could have been done better. But Binotto remains confident that his long-term plan to give Ferrari the foundations for a regular World Championship battle remains on track.
But he is certain of one thing: life as a Ferrari team principal, from the lows of the 2020/2021 season to the highs and lows of this season, is not for the faint of heart.
When asked if there have been difficult moments for him over the past 18 months, he smiles: “Every single day! I think it has certainly not been an easy journey from 2019, when I was appointed team boss, to today,” he said Binotto to “Motorsport-Total.com”.
“We have 2020, a very difficult year, and then 2021 behind us. But also in 2022, because we are fighting for the best, there are sometimes races in which we do not exploit the potential of the car. So it’s not easy,” says the Italian.
“But what I can say is that I’m happy in this role. I’m happy because I know I have a great team. The team is united. It’s great to see them working together.”
Pit wall drama
Binotto regularly talks about the strong team around him, but there are still times when he feels the weight of the world resting on his shoulders.
This is especially true when the television cameras pan to him on the pit wall at Ferrari’s most difficult moments: for example, when Charles Leclerc was in the lead in Baku and Spain and was plagued by an engine failure.
Binotto admits that these moments are difficult to deal with emotionally, but at the same time he feels it is his duty to keep calm.
When asked what’s going through his mind and how difficult these times are when things are going wrong in such a public way, he says: “It’s very difficult for two reasons. First, when it comes to an engine failure, I have this Department self-managed in the past. And seeing smoke is never nice. So that’s more of a feeling of depression.”
“No doubt when you see that we are leading the race, like Charles in Baku and even Carlos [Sainz] in Austria, then these are problems that you never want to see,” said Binotto. “I remain calm, but believe me, I’m depressed. It’s difficult and you need a few moments to react, then you really have to think about the next steps.”
“What is needed and what is required? And not just in terms of technique, but more in terms of the team. So what can I do to help? What can I do to make sure everyone is calm and focused remain and are also protected from attacks and comments from outside?”
Binotto doesn’t blame others when things go wrong, nor does he rule with an iron fist, leaving his employees in fear of losing their jobs.
Instead, he believes staff must have the authority to make decisions that are in the team’s best interests. That means he has to trust them completely.
“I think I encourage people around me,” he says when asked about his leadership style. “I think I’m not brutal, but I’m strict. And people around me know that I can be very strict.”
“But I think beyond that, I always try to empower them and give them everything they need to do their jobs. And I trust the people around me. I’m not the one who focuses on every single element I’m more focused on myself and making sure, like I said, they have what it takes to get the job done.”
Binotto continues: “I know how important the atmosphere in the team is, I know how important the mental approach and the culture are. We work a lot on it within the team and try to change our culture compared to before and the right attitude and right behavior.”
“I can see that the team is somehow very united and I think you can achieve that through transparency. I think you also have to be smart, sometimes transparent and real.”
The long way back up
Looking at Ferrari’s results over the past few years, the rebound this season is remarkable compared to the difficulties the team faced in 2020 – and suggests to some that the team was simply lucky at the start of the new rule cycle.
However, Binotto believes appearances can be deceiving and that Ferrari’s recent seasons have not painted the true picture of the team’s progress. He says the bugs with the car and power unit for 2020 have been compounded by the frozen development during the coronavirus pandemic. So you paid a higher price for your stumble.
“There are no magic formulas in Formula 1,” he says. “It didn’t just take a year or two [um sich zu erholen]. It was more than that. I think what we have today started a long time ago, maybe even in 2016 or 2017. It was a continuous building of the team, an improvement of ourselves.”
“It’s about organization, it’s about skill, it’s about experience, it’s about methodology and tools, it’s about means, and when I say means it can be a simulator, wind tunnel improvement, whatever you like Has.”
Looking back on the difficult 2020 season, the team boss says: “It was more than a step backwards, it was three steps backwards. Why? I think that in 2020 we just screwed up our project. And then everything was frozen at the beginning of the season It was as if Mercedes had been frozen at the first race of the season: what would have happened to them then?”
“I don’t think this team isn’t capable of developing. It’s capable of building a good car and fighting for the best places. But if you freeze your project at the first race and make some mistakes, like Mercedes did this season, you stay there for the whole season.”
“But 2020 is also the result of what we tried to do in 2019 when we completely redesigned the organization and the team,” Binotto continued. “In 2020 and 2021 we had limited opportunities to develop the car, which was a difficult car. So I think 2020 or 2021 doesn’t reflect what the overall capacity of the team was at the time.”
Binotto also has a long-term perspective at Ferrari: he sees the team on a steady journey to the top of the field, not rushed within a certain time frame. “As I said in 2017, the team just tries to make progress every year,” said the team boss.
“Today I think we got better feedback on the team’s performance. But without a doubt we’ve improved, without a doubt we’ve improved every single season and without a doubt I think 2020 has been useful for us, to help us in some way imposing even more the need to keep improving.”
“And obviously for 2020 we made some organizational changes and defined the roles and responsibilities more clearly. We had a new simulator, so I think it was a good time for us to say, ‘Okay, let’s make a point ‘Highlighting the weaknesses and trying to eliminate them all’. And I think we’ve done that.”
No changed approach
Although Ferrari got off to a strong start to the season, the shape curve was so down before the summer break that Red Bull was able to pull away at the top. But despite engine reliability issues and missed opportunities from strategic decisions, Binotto sees the rest of the season as part of the journey he started in 2017.
That’s why he sees no reason to change things radically before Formula 1 in Belgium comes back from the summer break. “I don’t think there’s anything we need to do differently,” he says. “I think we just have to continue our journey, improve step by step and focus on every single race.”
“I think we have the potential to win races at the moment. We just have to make sure that we end up in first place at the checkered flag. But that doesn’t mean we have to change our approach,” said Binotto.
“Like we said, there are no magic formulas, so I don’t think we need to change. We’ve proved we can do a good job. It’s just a matter of getting there step by step, getting used to it . And whatever the outcome for 2022, we’re trying to be prepared for 2023.”