Ferrari sticking to its primary 2022 objective of 'being competitive'

Ferrari and Red Bull have been in a league of their so far this season, sharing wins. But Scuderia boss Mattia Binotto says that winning the championship isn't his team's primary objective this year.

Red Bull leads the Italian outfit by 36 points in the Constructors' standings, having achieved five wins in seven races.

But Ferrari's track record versus its arch-rival could have been better had Charles Leclerc not been sidelined by an engine issue while comfortably leading the Spanish Grand Prix or not had his home race in Monaco undermined by his team's ill-timed strategy calls.

However, the same argument could be applied to Red Bull, with championship leader Max Verstappen suffering a pair of costly DNFs through no fault of his own in Bahrain and in Melbourne.

But overall, discarding the circumstances that have crafted the current status of the championship battle between the two teams and their leading drivers, Ferrari's F1-75 appears to have the upper hand against Red Bull's RB18.

Yet Binotto insists his troops aren't focused on the outcome of this year's campaign.

"We set our objectives to be back competitive in 2022," the Ferrari boss told the BBC. "So our objective is to be competitive, not to win the championship.

"And it would be completely wrong to turn that into: 'Let's try to win the championship because we are so competitive.' Being competitive is one fact; becoming world champion is another level of task."

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Binotto admits that playing down Ferrari's prospects helps keep the pressure under control.

"[Saying] that is maybe to take off some pressure from the team, but also I think it would be wrong as management to change objectives from the ones we gave them.

"No doubt what we intend to do is to try to open a cycle - become world champion, and not only once, try to stay there. But I think it will take time.

"Our internal mindset is still we need to improve as a team to be capable of winning a championship.

"It doesn't mean we will not do it. Maybe we will do it as soon as possible, but we are conscious of the fact that it is more than only being competitive."

While keeping things real and maintaining his team's focus on its performance level rather than its results, Binotto makes clear that Ferrari is not short on ambition.

"The ambition is there," he added. "Each single person working for Ferrari has the ambition. I don't think I need to remind them.

"More important is to let them focus on our process of continuous improvement, so each race is an opportunity for lesson-learned review and to build to do something better.

"And it is important to stay focused on each single race. We are not looking at the classifications."

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