Massa on Red Bull budget cap penalty: 'Don't know if it will penalise them'

20:40, 12 Feb 2023

byGPblog.com

Red Bull Racing and Ferrari were incredibly matched in the first half of the season, but in the final months of the season the RB18 of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez was many times faster. The Austrian racing team went into the winter with a big lead, but the big question is whether they maintained this lead and whether they will remain the fastest formation during the season. Felipe Massa still finds it difficult to say anything meaningful about that.

Massa was asked by La Gazzetta dello Sport if Red Bull is the favourite for 2023. "They finished last season with a car far ahead of the competition and they remain the strongest team. It is difficult to say whether the sanction for exceeding the budget cap will penalise them."

The Brazilian knows that Ferrari will mainly have to look to itself if they want to close the gap to Red Bull. "They had a great start in 2022 and then lost their way due to reliability problems, mistakes in strategy and some driver errors. But either way, they couldn't match Red Bull's development pace, so they still wouldn't have won the title. To win, you have to be perfect," he argues.

Binotto replaced by Vasseur

Mattia Binotto was responsible for Ferrari making a huge step from 2021 to 2022. The SF21 was a much more competitive car than the previous two seasons, but it was not enough for Binotto to keep his job. The Italian, who had been employed by Ferrari for more than 20 years, was sacrificed.

Whether that was right? "I have known Mattia since I was a test driver at Ferrari and I consider him a very good engineer, who has done a lot for the team, first as technical director and then as team boss," said Massa. "But there were a lot of mistakes last year and maybe also a problem with relations with top management and John Elkann. Someone had to pay the price for it, even if Binotto was not the only culprit."