Ferrari ambassador and long-standing test driver Marc Gene says the Scuderia can beat anyone on the F1 grid if they cut out mistakes. Hopes were high of a title challenge at Maranello after Charles Leclerc won two of 2022's first three races to seize the initiative in the championship fight. However, Ferrari would win just twice more all season long, as a combination of poor reliability, questionable strategy calls and driver error put paid to any chance of challenging eventual champion Max Verstappen. Following the 2022 season, it was also revealed that Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto would leave his role at the end of the year , with the Scuderia now set to appoint a fifth team boss in ten years.
Gene – We've showed we can be perfect
In analysing the disappointing end to Ferrari's 2022 title challenge, Gene says there are three main causes, adding that all of them have been resolved. "We've made mistakes this year," Gene told the F1 Nation podcast. "First reliability, but we knew that; we wanted performance. We knew we were going to get reliability with the engine later on, and we've been more reliable later on in the season. Gene highlighted Charles Leclerc's strong run to second place in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as evidence that Ferrari had ironed out the strategic mishaps that were prevalent in the early part of the season. "Strategy, of course, we've made some mistakes, even drivers sometimes have made some mistakes, but I think that that last race [in Abu Dhabi] shows that we can also be perfect in reliability [and] drivers. "Charles was perfect, strategy was perfect. Pit stop, the team was perfect, better than Mercedes and Red Bull, so we can do the job. "If we really learn from where we have not been perfect, it shows this weekend that we can beat anyone." Ferrari last won the F1 Drivers' Championship with Kimi Raikkonen in 2007, with neither Fernando Alonso nor Sebastian Vettel able to win a championship across a combined 11 seasons with the Scuderia.
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