F1 | Ferrari, Mattia Binotto: “Great work and strategy, we are the team that collected the most points in Istanbul”

Despite remaining in Maranello, working remotely, Mattia Binotto can be satisfied with his team. Ferrari's weekend had started very well, with Leclerc consistently in the top 3 during the free practice sessions. Something, however, changes drastically in qualifying, where the two drivers are unable to go beyond Q2. Thanks to the penalties of the McLaren drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc started from the eleventh and twelfth place on the grid. The German, on the clean side of the track, has excellent momentum at the start and easily reaches fourth position. Leclerc's race was different, as he built his climb towards the podium, also with an excellent strategy, a podium that would have been his if he had not made a mistake during the assault on Sergio Perez's second position. The Mexican maintained his position, while Leclerc was outwitted by Vettel, who took his first podium of the season.

"After a very difficult Saturday, it is nice to end Sunday as the team that has collected the most points of all in this Grand Prix – comments Binotto, who worked this weekend from the Ferrari headquarters in Maranello – we knew that, in these conditions, it would be a competition to see who made the fewest mistakes. I think that, as a team, we did a good job overall, particularly from a strategy point of view: we made courageous choices and we made them at the right time. In a way, it's even more significant that we could have had an even better haul, putting both drivers on the podium. We worked a lot, on the track and in Maranello, after yesterday we weren't able to make the tires work and I believe that today the results of this collective effort were seen, both with the wet tires and with the intermediates.

"We are particularly pleased that Sebastian managed to finish in the top three: he drove a great race, highlighted by a fantastic start. Charles was very fast for long stretches of the race: if it hadn't been for the start and the final braking on the last lap he would have finished in second place but it still remains an excellent performance from him. We have recovered some ground in the Constructors' classification but the gap compared to those ahead of us still remains significant. Here in Istanbul we confirmed the growth trend that began after Monza: we want to continue in this direction in the last three races of the season, in Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.

"Finally, I want to congratulate Lewis on this well-deserved world title which allows him to equal Michael Schumacher” concludes Binotto.