Ferrari insists that it has changed “nothing” on its engine as a result of the latest Formula 1 technical directives over engine rules, despite rivals suspecting its straight-line speed advantage has been reduced.
“No, no, we didn’t change nothing [anything],” Binotto said in an interview with Sky. “What we did is to read carefully the TDs because you need to meet up with whatever is a new technical directive. It’s important to understand it.
“We’ve still got an advantage on the straights,” he said. “I think we know since the start of the season that we are lacking downforce and maybe our car is somehow faster on the straights.
“Since the very start of F1, if you drop your downforce, you get some more speed [on the straights] but you reduce your speed in the cornering. And our car is not as good as the others in cornering.
“That’s why on circuits where we need the maximum downforce, like Hungary or the last one [Austin], or even in Mexico, we were lacking certainly speed in cornering. But we’ve got an advantage on the straight simply because we are running, let me say, a low downforce configuration.
“Now I think in Austin relative to the others we are slightly higher on downforce compared to what is a normal difference you’ve got. So we had less advantage of straights, still some advantage, but then we are gaining more in the corner.”
