Ferrari were one of the teams who managed to take advantage of the change in regulations in 2022, going from a team unable to lay a glove on Red Bull and Mercedes, to mounting a serious title challenge.
Despite boasting the fastest car for the majority of the season, the Scuderia saw strategy errors and reliability issues hold them back from utilising their full potential.
Max Verstappen and Red Bull eventually ran away with both titles, with their scary levels of consistency allowing them to pull away from Ferrari, who were repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot.
Despite reliability issues and mistakes by the strategy team being key to the team’s 2022 shortcomings, Mattia Binotto took the majority of the blame, refusing to ever point the finger at members of his team or place the blame at the door of specific departments.
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Sky Sports commentator David Croft has now suggested that Binotto’s decision to jump in front of bullets for his team could have been what caused him to lose his job with the Scuderia.
“I was thinking about this, did Mattia Binotto pat the price for a season of over-expectation for Ferrari? But no, is the answer to that, as you say they have engineered the fastest car,” said Croft when asked about the reasons for Binotto’s resignation.
“Did he pay the price for trying to protect the staff at Maranello from the intense scrutiny and any public blame? Yes, I think he did.
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“It’s interesting. Toto Wolff creates a culture of no blame at Mercedes. Mattia Binotto tries to do the same thing at Ferrari, one is fêted for that and the other has to resign.”
Fans on social media have recently suggested that if Ferrari are to overcome their shortcomings in 2022, then they have to find the roots of their problems by changing other member of staff rather than just the team principal.
Mattia Binotto will most likely bring some of his favoured staff from Alfa Romeo over to Ferrari in an attempt to solve Ferrari’s internal issues, however he then faces the problem of an extended period of transition while his new employees get used to working at the Scuderia.