Carlos Sainz finished 5th in the 2023 F1 Miami GP. He was solid all weekend and starting third, he thought the podium was possible. The man from Madrid stayed throughout the first batch of tires in Alonso’s DRS zone, close on the Spaniard’s heels. And it was there when Ferrari moved forward on his stop to go third from Oviedo with ‘undercut‘ (stops before Alonso to gain position). But this strategic change, according to Carlos Sainzhis second batch of tires perished.
“I did a good stint with the medium (rubber), and I felt very good there. And I kind of thought that the podium was possible and that passing Fernando was possible. It was a very strong stint that gave me the opportunity to go for the ‘undercut’. We pitted on lap 19 or so and by stopping and doing two or three quick laps on the hard to do undercut ruined the rest of the racebecause from there we started to degrade the tire, to heat it up”, he commented on ‘DAZN F1’.
“It shows that we have very little flexibility in our car to do different strategies and the least you try something a little different you will get from the ideal strategy the number of laps to do on the hard rubber. A stint on the spit can be very long. We experienced a lot with inconsistencies, tire overheating and leaving you with very little flexibility”, he added about the problems that Ferrari continues to experience, very fast in qualifying, but with a lot of degradation setbacks and long run race pace every Sunday.
“We have to keep trying things. We do this every weekend. We fought for pole position on Saturday and then on Sunday we got a bit slapped by the Red Bull on another planet and the Aston Martin with the better breakdown. And Los Mercedes… who were a second away in ‘qualifying’ and then in the race they put us two or three tenths (per lap)”he added.
“I think today we made a slightly more common approach, a longer stint on the medium, we were better on the hard rubber (in the second round), but we tried … We tried to go for the podium and that probably cost us fourth place”he says.
His penalty had no consequence on the outcome
In this sense, Carlos Sainz admitted the mistake he made when entering the pits, exceeding the permitted speed limit. He refrains from fighting for the podium, but in any case, he will not be able to fight with Alonso for that box because of his later problems on hard rubber. In fact, the 5-second penalty he incurred did not affect his final result, as he still finished 5th due to the 8″ advantage he had over Hamilton.
“It’s been a while since I entered. I was surprised by the ‘pit entry’ braking, and I’ve already tested it on the laps leading up to the gridbut then, with the lowered tire I made a mistake that ended up costing me nothing, though then I was worried throughout the race, because think that the ‘safety car’ will come out again and I end up in the points again because of that mistake”said.
“But the truth is, I had a very good first stint, I did it perfectly and I pushed Fernando as much as I could. In the second, we probably shot ourselves a little in the foot. It has been a very long stint, with blocked braking, errors, inconsistency… with the wind that is, it’s very difficult to drive our car, Charles already said”, Sainz said after talking to his teammate Leclerc, who was 7th, about the problems he had with his rhythm on the hard rubber Both agreed in their assessments.
Leclerc: “We are far from race pace”
Surprisingly, while Carlos Sainz had good speed in his first stint on the medium tire, the opposite was true for Charles Leclerc. He assured ‘DAZN F1’ that on medium rubber he has no grip and no confidence in his car. It went along but with the unevenness he noticed on his car in the placement of hard rubber.
“Honestly, we are very behind in the pace of the race. At first, it was about wheel management, but I didn’t have any grip, none of those ways. And nothing can be done. So I bid time and then I tried to pull with the hard ones because it was impossible on medium, but the car was very inconsistent. I have discussed this with Carlos and we both have the same comment. We lack consistency in the car. We have to analyze it because now we are very far in the race”, explained the Monegasque.
“Mercedes? It’s hard to understand, sometimes fast sometimes not. We know we will have problems in the race because it’s been like that since the beginning of the season. We don’t look too much at others because we focus on ourselves”, concluded Leclerc .
Source: La Verdad
I’m Rose Herman and I work as an author for Today Times Live. My expertise lies in writing about sports, a passion of mine that has been with me since childhood. As part of my job, I provide comprehensive coverage on everything from football to tennis to golf.
