Ferrari team boss praises Vettel: “Stayed calm”

“What I liked about Sebastian was that he stayed calm, worked his way into the matter to understand what he needed to improve on himself and the car,” the Italian told the specialist magazine car engine and sport .

The 32-year-old Vettel, who clearly missed out on the title in his fifth year at Ferrari, has “experience. He is very analytical. He tries to understand things,” explained Binotto (50).

However, Vettel lacked “confidence” in the car at the beginning of the year. And then, says Binotto, “you can’t drive at the limit. The more downforce we found, the more that confidence returned. And his lap times got better. Charles Leclerc was a good benchmark for him. That gave him extra motivation.”

Binotto sticks to the driver pairing In the stable duel, Vettel lost to Ferrari newcomer Leclerc, who was ten years his junior, by 24 points, and the two alpha animals kept arguing. In the penultimate race in Brazil, the Heppenheimer and the Monegasse were eliminated after an unnecessary collision - the highlight of their rivalry to date. Binotto is still sticking to the explosive driver pairing for 2020: “At the moment I see no reason for rules. I expect my drivers to be smart enough to avoid this in the future.”

He also expects the car to develop compared to the overall disappointing SF90H, which only won three of 2019 races in 21. “It's true that we could have won a lot more races, but to win a title you need the fastest and the most reliable car. We had neither. But we're not that far away. We have to close a gap and it can be done,” said Binotto.

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Ferrari team boss praises Vettel: “Stayed calm”

Ferrari team boss Mattia Binotto praised four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel for his crisis management after the difficult 2019 season.