The Maranello squad raised some eyebrows at the start of Q3 at Interlagos on Friday when Charles Leclerc was the only driver to head out on wet-weather rubber as rain threatened.
The decision to not take slicks proved to be the incorrect one, as the track was still plenty dry enough. Being out on the wrong tyre left Leclerc a frustrated 10th on the grid.
The Monegasque driver said afterwards: “We were expecting some rain which never came. I will speak with the team and try to understand what we can do better in those conditions. But I’m extremely disappointed. The pace was there.”
Ferrari later explained that the decision to put Leclerc on inters had been prompted by it wanting to split strategies across its cars because the forecast had been for rain to arrive immediately.
Had the weather blown in as quick as Ferrari anticipated then it could have been the key to pulling off a pole position, as other drivers on slicks would have been on the wrong tyres.
But with the rain not coming down as hard as it wanted, Ferrari had to own up to making an error.
Reflecting on what happened, Binotto said that in such crazy weather conditions there was a fine line between good and bad calls.
However, he still felt it important that the team gets together to better understand its decision-making processes that led it to electing to go down the split strategy route in the first place.
Asked by Motorsport.com if there was any concern that Ferrari was over-thinking some strategy calls, Binotto said: “Obviously, when you've got such weather conditions, it's always a lottery.
“I think the fact that Kevin [Magnussen] was on the pole, with [Lewis] Hamilton eighth on the grid and [Sergio] Perez ninth, it's a lottery, no?
“But we made it wrong, because certainly we are the only one on intermediates at the time, and not on slicks.
“Those types of mistakes I think, in such a lottery situation, they always happen. Plus those mistakes can turn into the right decision as well, because it's only a weather change that maybe a minute after was simply happening.
“But, what I'm looking at, together with the team, was the process that brought us to such a decision, which I think is more important rather than the decision itself. Was it right or wrong, and why are we doing that when maybe the others didn't?”
