Mattia Binotto admitted Mercedes have improved after Ferrari got beaten by them at the 2022 Mexico City Grand Prix, a tough race for the Scuderia.
Ferrari suffered in Mexico, their power units turned down to avoid a failure as their small turbo would have been overworked at 2.2km above sea level.
Coupled with balance issues, the team finished the race fifth with Carlos Sainz, and sixth with Charles Leclerc almost one minute away from race winner Max Verstappen.
Mercedes were vastly improved in Mexico and outqualified and outraced the Reds with Lewis Hamilton finishing second.
Binotto acknowledged Mercedes’ advance, while speaking to Formula 1’s official website: “Mercedes is coming back, they’ve looked more competitive than we did [here].
Ferrari stopped development
“We know we stopped development on our car quite early, focussing on 2023 and somehow I’m not too… let me say concerned by the rate of development because I know when we stopped developing it,” he added, confident of his team’s own development plans.
“Certainly if I look at the last three races it has not always been great, but Singapore we were very competitive,” the Ferrari boss went on, reviewing the last few races.
“The one after – Japan – yes it was very wet, we were not as fast as Max [Verstappen] but it was not a drama, certainly not in quali.
“Then in the States in Austin, again I think in the quali we were competitive then not as much as we expected in the race. Here [Mexico] I think it’s a lot worse, so I don’t think it’s the same trend, Singapore competitive, Japan not too bad, USA good quali.
“So I think here it has been a lot more difficult and I’m hoping it’s not a trend, just an [outlying] weekend for us,” Binotto summed up.
Despite being beaten by Mercedes, Ferrari still lead the eight-time F1 Constructors’ Champions by 40 points in the Constructors’ Standings.
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objective: See out 2022 on a high #essereFerrari @Charles_Leclerc @Carlossainz55 pic.twitter.com/V4xyrIZYVc— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) November 1, 2022