Ferrari F1 boss Binotto considering skipping final races of 2020 season

Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto is considering whether to skip some of the remaining four races of the 2020 Formula 1 season in order to focus the Italian squad’s preparations for 2021.

A woeful 2020 campaign has left Ferrari on course to record its worst result in F1 for over three decades, with the team currently sitting sixth in the constructors’ championship on 103 points.

In a bid to try and improve Ferrari’s fortunes for 2021, Binotto confirmed he might temporarily step back from his role overseeing trackside operations during grand prix events to return to the factory as work begins on next year’s car.

Binotto said he may not be present at some, or even all, of the last four rounds, starting with this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix.

“You need always to balance your tasks at the racetrack and at the factory,” Binotto said at the last race at Imola. “Still the factory is important where we are developing the car, preparing the cars.

“I think I will not follow all the races, even in 2020 I am already considering eventually skipping some of the racing in the last part of the season starting from Turkey.

“Because at the end, when you’re responsible for an entire team, certainly the race event is important, but the entire… management of the entire team is even more important.”

Ferrari is investing much of its 2021 resources into developing a brand new power unit for next season as it looks to fix its engine deficit that has hampered its 2020 campaign.

Binotto said early indications from the dyno figures were “very promising” in terms of both performance and reliability.

“The engine is running currently at the dyno and I think the feedback, in terms of both the performance and reliability, are very promising,” Binotto explained.

“We've got dyno limitations [for 2021] and it’s down to us to be efficient in the way we are planning all the tests on the dynos, and being even creative in the way we are approaching the testing.

“But I think that even if we've got some limitations on dyno operations, still there is room for improvement, and I think that, from what I can see today at the dyno, I'm happy with the results.”