Ferrari: F1 2022 car not a race winner just yet
Ferrari does not think its new F1-75 car is a race winner just yet, despite its strong showing in pre-season Formula 1 testing.


The Italian car manufacturer has looked impressive through both the Barcelona and Bahrain tests, with many suggesting it has the strongest package right now.
But while the Maranello outfit is optimistic it has made good progress over the winter to move closer to the front, team boss Mattia Binotto says that any talk of it being the team to beat is wide of the mark.
PLUS: Why Red Bull and Ferrari really start 2022 as favourites
Binoitto does not understand why others have praised his squad's potential, when he thinks it is impossible to know exactly where everyone stacks up right now for the first race.
"I'm not myself capable of judging the others," he said.
"But we should be very good to judge ourselves and I don't think we will be [the] winner.
"I think both Red Bull and Mercedes have very strong and fast cars, and those teams are very strong as well.
"I can see that even on the last day [of the test] Red Bull have brought upgrades to their car, proving and showing how good they are in the development, which is critical from now to the first race.
"Maybe Mercedes as well will improve further. So they are very strong, very fast and I hope that we can be outsiders.
"I hope that we can somehow try to challenge them. That would be great from our side."
While Ferrari has been especially keen to keep a lid on its own expectations, driver Charles Leclerc does confess to the pre-season build-up being the most productive he can remember since he joined the team at the start of 2019.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari F1-75
Photo by: Motorsport Images
"It's definitely one of the smoothest preparations I've had for a season, with no major issues," he said.
"Especially on such a new project, you always expect to find some barriers on the way and for now, without porpoising, which is still kind of an issue in some conditions, it's been quite smooth.
"We managed to just keep improving. But as we've seen, I think Red Bull have quite a new package and Mercedes had a completely new car, and didn't really show their potential. Everyone seems to be quite close at some point or another.
"So it's very, very difficult to know how much they have in margin. We know how much margin we have, but we have no idea how much they hide their gains."
But while downplaying the prospects for the start of the season, Binotto thinks that it is critical that Ferrari goes aggressive with its upgrade push.
"I think that we always need to do a further step," he said. "I think you cannot be self confident at all, and I think you need always to try to develop and improve yourself in F1.
"We know that our competitors are very, very strong and have proved to be as well very fast.
"I'm expecting them to be ahead at the first race. For us it's to try to challenge them as much as we can, and hopefully we can fight as well together with them, and that will be great at least for the start of the season. But then development will be key for the rest of the season."

F1 teams set to discuss rule tweaks to avert "mirror war"
Brundle "doesn’t buy" idea Hamilton would have quit F1

Latest news
Horner: F1 drivers shouldn’t be “robots” amid ban on political statements
Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner has cautioned Formula 1 drivers should not be a “load of robots” in the wake of the FIA’s new restrictions on making statements.
NASCAR Cup LA Coliseum: Truex wins chaotic Clash race
Martin Truex Jr held off Richard Childress Racing team-mates Austin Dillon and Kyle Busch to win the NASCAR Cup pre-season Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Castroneves: “Too early” to think about potential replacement by Blomqvist
Four-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves says it’s too soon to consider Meyer Shank Racing might want to swap him to the IMSA squad and bring Tom Blomqvist over to IndyCar.
Why some DTM teams take out crash insurance but others gamble
The 2022 DTM season featured several major pile-ups and accidents, costing teams several hundred thousands in repair costs. While some had insured cars against such damage, others weren’t so well prepared…
The pioneering F1 car that preceded Lotus’s terminal decline
In the hands of Ayrton Senna the actively suspended 99T would be the last F1 race-winning Lotus but, as STUART CODLING reveals, it was a complicated machine that caused more problems than it solved
How Tyrrell became a racing Rubik’s cube as it faded out of F1
Formula 1’s transformation into a global sport meant the gradual extinction for a small team determined to stay true to its low-budget roots. But Tyrrell would eventually be reborn as a world-beating outfit again, explains MAURICE HAMILTON, albeit in different colours…
Assessing Hamilton's remarkable decade as a Mercedes F1 driver
Many doubted Lewis Hamilton’s move from McLaren to Mercedes for the 2013 Formula 1 season. But the journey he’s been on since has taken the Briton to new heights - and to a further six world championship titles
Why new look Haas is a litmus test for Formula 1’s new era
OPINION: With teams outside the top three having struggled in Formula 1 in recent seasons, the rules changes introduced in 2022 should have more of an impact this season. How well Haas does, as the poster child for the kind of team that F1 wanted to be able to challenge at the front, is crucial
The Mercedes F1 pressure changes under 10 years of Toto Wolff
OPINION: Although the central building blocks for Mercedes’ recent, long-lasting Formula 1 success were installed before he joined the team, Toto Wolff has been instrumental in ensuring it maximised its finally-realised potential after years of underachievement. The 10-year anniversary of Wolff joining Mercedes marks the perfect time to assess his work
The all-French F1 partnership that Ocon and Gasly hope to emulate
Alpine’s signing of Pierre Gasly alongside Esteban Ocon revives memories of a famous all-French line-up, albeit in the red of Ferrari, for BEN EDWARDS. Can the former AlphaTauri man's arrival help the French team on its path back to winning ways in a tribute act to the Prancing Horse's title-winning 1983?
How do the best races of F1 2022 stack up to 2021?
OPINION: A system to score all the grands prix from the past two seasons produces some interesting results and sets a standard that 2023 should surely exceed
Who were the fastest drivers in F1 2022?
Who was the fastest driver in 2022? Everyone has an opinion, but what does the stopwatch say? Obviously, differing car performance has an effect on ultimate laptime – but it’s the relative speed of each car/driver package that’s fascinating and enlightening says ALEX KALINAUCKAS
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.