Sunday's race at Le Castellet was the first
time Ferrari had failed to score this year, with Spaniard Carlos
Sainz 11th and Monegasque Charles Leclerc 16th.
They had qualified fifth and seventh respectively, with Leclerc
on pole at the two previous races in Monaco and Azerbaijan, but
Ferrari ended the weekend dropping from third to fourth overall
in the constructors' championship.
"We have not been capable of making the tyres work as we should
have done and I think our performance was really strictly linked
to the tyres, the way we made them work," Binotto told
reporters.
Le Castellet did not host a race last year due to the COVID-19
pandemic but Binotto said hot conditions and high speed corners
putting a lot of energy into the tyres had been a problem in the
past.
"We should have addressed it and it’s not yet the case," said
Binotto. "Looking at the future it's important for us as a
lesson learned."
He said it would take more than development of the current car
to fix the problem, however.
"To solve it, I think we need to have some hardware change, like
for example the rims, which is not possible for regulations,"
said the Italian.
"I think it's more important for us to try to understand and to
address it definitively for next year. In the meanwhile I think
that this issue will happen again at some races but not on all
the tracks."
Sainz, who joined the team this year from McLaren, said the team
tended to struggle more in races than in qualifying but there
had been some where race pace was not an issue.
"It's really clear that we have a very narrow window of working
range on our front tyres and we tend to struggle a lot more with
graining and front wear than our competitors," said the
Spaniard.
"Now we are trying to understand why we have such a narrow
window and why we struggle more with this front tyre wear."
France was the first of a triple-header of races on successive
weekends, with Austria's Red Bull Ring hosting the next two.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin; Editing by Alison Williams)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.![](column_spacer.png) |
|