The chain of mistakes that led to the disastrous tire change that cost Carlos Sainz the podium shows that decorum and preparation are lacking in the Scuderia
Twitter is not life, but it is a mirror (distorted, like Valle-Inclán’s) of it. For a few months now, it has been a recurring joke to guess when and how Ferrari is going to make a mistake. The head of strategy, Spain’s Iñaki Rueda, has become “the strategist” due to his continued failures in reading the races. Of the fifteen Grand Prix contested, at least one mistake has been made from the Scuderia wall on the fingers of one hand (and there are fingers left).
This is one of the main issues that have made Ferrari a contender for second place, and thank you, having started the year as a big favourite, it is certainly not the main one. The biggest fear of the two drivers in red is pit stops.
Watching the video of the first entry into Carlos Sainz’s garages with the music of ‘The Benny Hill Show’, whose original title is ‘Yakety Sax’, will make you laugh. There are several points of interest of the moment that demonstrate the absolute chaos in which the Ferrari mechanics live. Eyes should be aimed higher, but the image speaks for itself.
The movie is next. Sainz enters. Late, as usual, but with the mechanics warned… presumably. The dance that has been seen so many times begins: the one with the gun, the one with the hydraulic jack, the one with the four wheels… four? No, one is missing! The one who should have the left rear tire appears at the top right (just on the other side of the car) trying to dodge colleagues, while the others looked for him in bewilderment. Finally, and with the addition to the show of Checo Pérez stepping on the gun that was let loose there, the mechanic finds the way. Frodo Baggins needed less time to get from the Shire to Mount Doom. Finally the missing wheel fits on Sainz’s car. Reverse time: 12.7 seconds. Result: another run to waste.
And this was only the first mistake, as the second one no longer surprises anyone: a clear ‘unsafe release’, as it forced Alonso to brake and turn the wheel to avoid the accident.
The tifosi don’t know whether to feel even more outraged at what happened or at Mattia Binotto’s gross apologies when he has to work for what he’s paid for: head of the Scuderia. In this case, just admit that they were not prepared. Ferrari, the Formula 1 team par excellence, is caught in its panties by a pit stop.
“It was a mess. A late phone call and the mechanics weren’t ready yet. We didn’t have time to react. We knew Lewis (Hamilton) was preparing for a pit stop that would allow him to overtake us. We tried to react to get him.” to stay ahead because we knew Lewis was very fast in the first part of the race When we saw the Mercedes pit crew in the pit lane we called our driver but he was in the last corner and it was too late for the mechanics to be ready,” Binotto said.
The problem is not what happened at Zandvoort like on so many other tracks, but rather a deadly lack of preparation. Anyone who has had a chance to attend some pre-season testing will have seen other teams rehearse over and over again the choreography required to change tires at the end of each day. It is no coincidence that Red Bull is the team that makes them faster on average, along with Alpine or Williams: they are aware that, in the absence of pure performance of the car, they need those extra seconds in the pit stops, mandatory since tire change was imposed in Formula 1 a few decades ago.
Ferrari needs to improve noticeably. Mercedes has already eaten its toast and with seven grands prix to go they are just 29 points behind. Failures in the pits are unforgivable at this point, especially as the Silver Arrows squad is at such a point where it is unforgivable not to finish on the podium. For Ferrari, on the other hand, they are content not to make a fool of themselves. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen is unstoppable towards his second World Cup (mathematically he can do it within two Grands Prix, in Singapore) and with a record of victories in a season.
Source: La Verdad
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