On the back of its new engine upgrade, Ferrari is very confident of beating the Mercedes-powered McLaren at this weekend's Mexican GP where it expects to overtake the team from Woking for P3 in the constructor's championship.
"In Mexico, we are running there with maximum downforce performance and it is a track where power sensitivity is less important," said Ferrari's team principal Mattia Binotto.
"So although there is still a gap to Mercedes [in power terms], I think the Mexico track will be in our favour compared to what we saw in Austin," he added, indicating the fact that this will be a track well suited to Ferrari.
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In fact, many believe that due to high altitude Ferrari could even compete with Red Bull for the win. Ferrari has proven to be right up there with Red Bull on the mechanical grip but now with the added grunt of its new engine, its deficit to Mercedes is negligible added with its new ERS system which many believe is the best on the grid which allows the Ferrari to run faster for longer without going back into harvesting mode.
Mattia Binotto feels Ferrari should be well ahead of the McLaren at Mexico
Photo Credit: AFP
Ferrari also has arguably the best driver line up on the grid with Charles Leclerc who often performs wonderfully well in qualifying sessions and the dependable Carlos Sainz Jr. Ferrari is particularly enthused about the performance of its cars at COTA which is a track that isn't suited to its car characteristics but it still managed to have a huge gap over McLaren.
"Generally-speaking, this year the McLaren has been always very competitive in the medium/high-speed corners and again it was the case in Austin," said Binotto.
"But I think if I look at the overall performance of the weekend, we were ahead of them, which was very obvious in qualifying and Charles [in the race] was half a second [per lap] on average ahead of Ricciardo, finishing 25 seconds ahead of him. In the overall balance of the lap, I think we were clearly faster and I think on paper it was not a circuit which was suiting obviously our car," he added.
"That is why I am pleased with the progress I have seen in the last races and certainly the help of the power unit, both for qualy and the race. That gives me some confidence for the next races," said the Swiss-Italian.
