Ferrari decided to go first Charles Leclerc at the 2023 F1 Hungarian GP with Carlos Sainz. The Spanish rider made a good start on the soft tires and, with a faster pace, was able to follow Charles but was unable to overtake him. But the most remarkable is what happened later: Carlos Sainz got a position on Leclerc because Ferrari he lost too much time with a bad pit stop. so included Carlos Sainz ahead of the Monegasque because of that mistake, at the second stop, the logical thing would have been to prioritize the front driver and call him to the pits first, but Ferrari did it the other way around: Leclerc was called a lap earlier and Carlos was given a manual undercut. Sainz lost his position. According to Sainz himself, the team wants to “compensate” for the Leclerc mistake and he was not criticized. Furthermore, he defends that what matters is the team and above all, focus his efforts on improving the car.
“I thought it was done because of the bad ‘pit-stop’ that Charles (Leclerc) had, the team decided to pay. I’m not mad. And no, I’m not worried about finishing seventh or eighth. I’m worried about being a second and a half slower than Mercedes at the end of the race,” he told the Spanish press present at the Hungarian GP,
Leclerc, at that second stop, exceeded the speed limits in the pit lane, a mistake by the Monegasque. He got 5 seconds for it. Sainz came close to those 5 seconds, but he defended the position to Russell, lost it and fell 0.7 short of passing Charles.
“You are looking at it in a bit of a conspiratorial way. It’s not as conspiratorial as you think. Yes, it’s true that Charles stopped in front of me to give him the position and I don’t think that’s a secret, but he stopped slowly at the beginning and they wanted to pay for the cars that way”, said the Spaniard.
“I insist. For the team it’s the same to finish 7th and 8th or 8th and 7th when we all expect from the weekend.” Carlos, once again showed his side of more than a team, of the shield, of work, of bowing his head to improve and of not letting himself be distracted by egos and specific positions that are not important. Sainz doesn’t care if he finishes 7th. What he wants is to win. That was what worried him the most and what he worked on the most. You don’t want to waste time whining about strategy. He wants to improve his car and for this the focus must be on the real problem of the team: the car.
IT WAS NOT AGREED NOT TO PROMOTE HIM
“Everyone is doing their race, doing what they can. The truth is that I started very well and I was very fast in the race, but I insist: the Mercedes, the Red Bulls and the McLarens, when we go for longer stints with the hardest tires, they put us in a lot of things and that makes the stints longer and that’s where we suffer the most,” he added before the Spanish.
NO INTERFERENCE WITH THIS POSITION
“If it’s for victories, I’ll be more angry. But if it’s for seventh or eighth place… I’m not that worried, not at all. Because I insist, our priority is to understand why in the last 10 laps with hard tires, Mercedes put us more than a second per lap. I think what can change my season is if we can analyze the most important thing before that, and if we understand another thing before that, and if we understand we the other thing before the concern, and if we understand the other thing before the concern, and if we understand the other thing. 8th”, comment.
HARD RACE
“The last two races were difficult, because the McLarens suddenly passed us on the left and they gave us a good pass. Even Mercedes at the pace of the race and the Red Bulls were a significant step up in the pace of the race. And maybe that was surprising after a positive weekend like in Austria. But this is how F1 works. Now it’s up to us to take another step forward to try to recover.”
MAIN WEAKNESSES OF THE CAR
“It’s been a difficult, complicated year. The car is not as strong as we would like and above all it has some major weaknesses that we see appear in all circuits, except on some occasions like in Canada or Austria which greatly limits what we can do in the race.”
SPA, NEXT RACE
“We were not very fast there last year and we suffered a lot. But this year is a little different, so we have to wait and see.”
NEW CASING IN LAS GOMAS FROM SILVERSTONE
“No. We don’t notice any difference and we don’t see any difference.”
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.
