Ferrari boss gives up on Sainz: “He did a great job”

Carlos Sainz had a great weekend at the Australian F1 GP before the final penalty. He was superior from Friday’s free practice to Charles Leclercqualified in fourth position and was able to keep pace with Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso to fight for the podium until the end. He soon entered the pits and was hit by the subsequent red flag, moving him to 7th position, but the man from Madrid has started a great comebackwith the aggressive overtaking which allowed him to return to fourth place and aim for the podium after the second red flag.

However, on the subsequent start, with cold tires due to how slow the previous ‘Safety Car’ was, many drivers suffered, including a Sainz went wide in turn 1 and held Alonso. The race was stopped due to an accident between Gasly and Ocon at that point, but race management decided to penalize Sainz by 5 seconds which would have taken him from fourth place and left him 12th, an excessive penalty for Spanish.

The Ferrari Team Principal spoke about all this, Frédéric Vasseur, praises the performance of Carlos Sainz and how he bounced back after being hurt by the first red flag.

“Carlos came back very well after the unfortunate pit stop before the red flag, and to be penalized like that before the end is very difficult. I’m sure you will be emotional in this situation, because you are not far from the podium. You are fourth coming from nowhere when everyone else gets a free pit stop,” he commented on Carlos Sainz’s anger when he was told in the pit lane that he would be sanctioned.

“He did a mega job and now I think the sanction can be discussed for hours, whether it was harsh or not. Certainly, depending on your team, the analysis will differ…”Vasseur said at the post-race press conference.

“But I think it’s a shame. Because it didn’t have an impact on the podium, at least the stewards could have listened to Carlos and looked at the data. I think it’s a shame. Last week we changed the regulations twice in 10 minutes at the pit stop for Alonso. The same can happen now, at least to talk about”concluded about it.

Positive on Ferrari’s improvement

In Jeddah, a very difficult weekend for Ferrari, Frédéric Vasseur wanted to keep the positive side, which is the car jumping by a lap. And after Australia, the Ferrari boss refocused on the aspects his team had done well, with a better race pace than that shown in Saudi Arabia.

“There are positive aspects. Looking at the whole weekend, on Saturday we were disappointed with the result, but the performance level was there, we didn’t put it all together. But on Sunday the rhythm was good. We had to make an extra pit stop, but I accept that, and the pace was good. It was a step forward from two weeks ago in Jeddah, and now we have to take another step forward for Baku,” he said.

Evolutions?

Mercedes is planning a major evolution of its car for Imola where it could modify its W14 sidepod concept. Aston Martin has already announced that it will bring improvements to the next round at Baku and also at Imola, among other tracks. and Ferrari? Vasseur wanted to keep the doubt.

“I’m not too focused on it at this stage of the weekend. If you go back to the performance side, I think we had a good recovery compared to Jeddah, we had a good pace throughout the race. Even if you make up for the extra pit stop by Carlos, he was pushing the tires, but the breakdown was fine and in the end we were fighting for a good lap time. It is an important step for us, but the taste is a little different”, he concluded, as Sainz was left without points due to the sanction and Leclerc was abandoned due to a touch from Stroll in the first lap. Ferrari left Australia without a point, a date where he could have scored a bit.