Ferrari claim gap to Red Bull now ‘negligible’ after key upgrade

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto believes a rear wing update has brought the Scuderia closer to Red Bull

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Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto insists the Scuderia’s latest updgrade has “closed the gap” to Red Bull after two successive race victories.

Having not won a race since Australia in April amid reliability and strategy problems, Carlos Sainz won the British Grand Prix at the beginning of the month and Charles Leclerc won last week’s Austrian Grand Prix as Ferrari look to hunt down Red Bull in the standings.

Binotto believes a new design with the rear wing - which both Scuderia cars have had since Silverstone - has made the gap “very little or negligible” ahead of the second-half of this season.

“I think in terms of pure speed [the cars are] very similar and quali is proving it,” Binotto said. “I don’t think there is much difference between the two cars.”

“We started pushing, putting pressure on Max at the restart and forcing him to have more pace and more pace was more degrading the tyres. So I think what we saw in the sprint has been more obvious because we put more pressure on.

“We had a disadvantage compared to the Red Bull, no doubt, in terms of straight-line speed especially in DRS zones, so in terms of the power of the DRS compared to ours. We worked a lot on it, built a new rear wing that we introduced as first only on one example, which was on Charles’ [car] in Canada. We’ve had it on both cars since the UK and with that new rear wing.

“We simply reduced the gap. We closed the gap, we had more speed. I think they’ve still got a slight advantage, but very little or negligible, it’s why in the power we are very close. Then it’s only about the grip limit in the cornering where we can make the difference.”

Ferrari have won four of the 11 races so far this season and are currently 56 points behind Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship. Leclerc, meanwhile, is 38 points behind Championship leader Max Verstappen, with Sainz 37 points further behind his team-mate after failing to finish in Austria while Leclerc won the Grand Prix.

F1 heads to Circuit Paul Ricard in the south of France this weekend, with the French Grand Prix the penultimate race before the summer break.