Binotto: Ferrari 'didn't have pace' to win in Hungary, regardless of strategy error

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto has said that the car was not quick enough to win, regardless of the team’s botched strategy involving Charles Leclerc.

The Monegasque was in the mix for the race win at the Hungaroring but found himself being put onto the hard tyres for the final stint of the Grand Prix, in a move that quickly became clear to be the wrong one from the team.

Indeed, it’s unfortunately not the first time we have seen mistakes made by Ferrari in terms of strategy this year and that, combined with reliability problems and a few driver errors, means we go into the summer break with both championships getting dangerously close to a formality.

For Binotto, though, even if they had got every call spot on on Sunday in Budapest, the pace was not there with their car to realistically challenge for victory.

“Today the car was not performing the way we were expecting it to, and that was the issue more than the strategy. Carlos’ strategy was the same as Hamilton’s and it didn’t work either,” Binotto said to Sky Italy.

“The performance of the car did not give us the freedom to do what we wanted and we were forced on the defensive.

“The pace was different from what we saw on Friday, we were not fast enough in the race today in these conditions. Something did not work on the car.

“We did notice that Charles was faster than Carlos – like Hamilton was faster than Russell – but as we saw, Hamilton’s strategy did not work for Carlos either. Then of course we need to analyse if it would have worked for Charles. The biggest problem today was the car.”

The race was run in a lot cooler conditions compared to the practice sessions at the start of the weekend, where Ferrari had looked particularly strong.

That clearly played its