With a lead of 116 points, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen could secure back-to-back championships under certain conditions at the next Singapore Grand Prix on October 2 with six races to go before the end of this year’s Formula One season.

As a result, Ferrari is turning its attention to identifying the issues that have prevented the F1-75 from claiming victory against the Red Bull RB18 on equal terms in the last four GPs – allowing Verstappen to win three of those four races from the start in 7th place until 14

However, the Ferrari F1-75 maintains its original single lap speed, as evidenced by its qualifying performance, prompting Mattia Binotto to speak out about tire management issues.

The cause of these problems is a serious problem that Scuderia must identify and solve, especially for 2023, as the Italian team commander from Maranello said.

At free tests at Monza, Ferrari conducted a head-to-head comparison of its old and new floors in the cars of Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, respectively, to collect data that will help understand the car’s troubled balance in the races .

As the team prepares a third – new – floor for the Singapore GP, Binotto says analyzing and understanding this data is vital: “In the last few races, I think Red Bull’s performance has been better than ours. Not in qualifying because I see that in our speed staying good – so let me say our speed is still there‘ said the Italian.

“But then we suffer from tire wear at race pace. In that respect, Red Bull is a better car, they were able to develop a more balanced car than us. The reason; It’s something we’re investigating because we need to solve it. If not for this year, for sure next year“, he added.

Binotto went on to explain the cause of the Scuderia’s problems, saying the F1-75’s tire wear was due to the Cavallino’s sub-optimal balance in recent races – specifically the car’s tension and persistent skidding.

“In the last couple of races we haven’t been the best in terms of tire wear, we definitely had problems with the balance of the car. In medium and slow corners, the car caused the tires to overheat, which in turn caused wear.

So we know that the balance of the car is not ideal. And the cause of this bad balance was the aerodynamic developments that we implemented. This was a question mark for us‘ concluded the Scuderia manager.

Saint: “It’s not the fault of strategy”

As well as problems with the F1-75 setup, Ferrari has come under fire for some of its strategic decisions in GPs this year – but now Carlos Sainz has defended Inaki Rueda’s team’s decisions, saying no other team can match them. Criticism.

“It’s difficult to make generalizations about where we could have been bolder and where we could have been more careful,” said the Spaniard. “We have to analyze each option individually. And in this case, I’m sure every conclusion will be different. For me it’s important to constantly improve and find ways to make the right decisions every time.

And this year we made the right decisions many times and nobody came to tell us we made the right decisions or to congratulate us. On the other hand, we received severe criticism for two or three decisions that we now call bad.

When I was at McLaren, Toro Rosso or Renault, when we made a big strategic mistake, nobody came to point it out and criticize us, like Ferrari. And that’s a fact that I think everyone will agree with. At Ferrari, everything seems bigger. The win is bigger, the mistake is bigger. It’s not like that; I try to adapt to this in order to be able to react better to situations“.