Ferrari boss questions if Mercedes really closer to winning races in F1 title fight

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto says Mercedes still have a ‘significant’ deficit to the frontrunning teams in Formula 1 despite their improvements and the Spanish Grand Prix, casting doubt on their ability to win a race in the near future.

The Silver Arrows have been constructors’ champions every year since 2014, but are on the back foot so far in 2022 as they struggle with the biggest regulation change in a generation in F1. Prior to last weekend’s race at the Circuit de Catalunya, the team was struggling immensely with porpoising, the term given to the phenomenon whereby their W13 suffered from violent bouncing at high speed on long straights.

But they arrived in Barcelona with a raft of new upgrades to their machinery which tempered the porpoising significantly, allowing drivers George Russell and Lewis Hamilton to extract more pace from the car, leaving seven-time world champion Hamilton ‘super happy’ with the improvement.

Come race day on Sunday, Russell was able to take an impressive podium behind Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez after demonstrating superb defensive driving when ahead of both Red Bulls, while Hamilton excellently recovered to fifth from the back of the pack following an opening lap collision with Haas driver Kevin Magnussen.

Despite the positive results, Binotto tempered talk of Mercedes challenging for race wins by pointing out the gap between them and Max Verstappen come the finish line.

‘Congrats first to them, because they’ve recovered and they have improved the speed of their car,’ Binotto told Sky Sports F1. ‘They were seven-tenths off the pace in the qualifying, during a single qualifying lap, and it’s a short circuit here.

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