After his win at Silverstone, the Madrid driver must keep the bar high or at least not fail in a weekend with a sprint format
The second Grand Prix of the 2022 season will take place this weekend at the Red Bull Ring, which will be held in sprint form: qualifying on Friday, a half-hour race on Saturday over 24 laps and a normal race on Sunday over 71 laps. Another weekend to perhaps definitively change the ‘status quo’ of current Formula 1. Carlos Sainz’s win at Silverstone a few days ago caused a small earthquake.
Everything seemed more or less settled: Max Verstappen as the big favourite, Sergio Pérez as his squire and possibly alternative if Red Bull stepped forward, and Charles Leclerc as the ‘yes but no’ candidate due to the continued and bizarre failures of Ferrari, apart from what happened behind with Mercedes, Alpine, McLaren, etc. Sainz didn’t count in this list: until the British GP, he was the only one in the Ferrari/Red Bull quartet without pole position or victory, two ballasts he has already shaken off.
While shouting “stop inventing” (stop inventing), the Spanish pilot pulled out the audacity to disobey his team in pursuit of a greater good: guaranteeing a win. Not just his, which was his fundamental goal, but Ferrari’s as well. That, along with a strategy to improve around Charles Leclerc, has clearly put Sainz on the map – the Monegask chained several races after the Spaniards, the last to finish ahead of the Miami GP in May – and has raised more than reasonable doubts. : Can he take the reins and become Scuderia’s first team?
Sainz doesn’t want him to get in trouble because of this. Aware that he still has a long season ahead of him and that he must ultimately pass under the unwritten law of ‘you run for Ferrari, you win for Ferrari’, the Madrid man tried to settle the controversy at the press conference ahead of at the GP from Austria. “Ferrari won and I won, so it was almost never a wrong decision. It is true that Charles was left in a compromised situation, but in return he gave Ferrari a clear position to win the race, which is the main goal. I had new wheels, it was very easy for me to pass Charles and for the team to understand my reaction and my arguments,” he said.
It’s been complex days at the Scuderia and in the Ferrari environment, not so much because of the result or because of that already classic reinvented “stop inventing” that Sainz put out on the radio, but because they showed a lack of conviction in the ideas of blame Ferrari. Losing what seemed like a more than possible double at Silverstone hurts a lot among the ‘tifosi’ fans.
In any case, as Sainz explained, the post-race meeting, where the engineers and drivers exchange information and analyze what happened, wasn’t too tense. “The meeting was normal, as it should be. Both after a normal race and a not so normal race. If there’s one thing that defines us at Ferrari, it’s the team spirit, the respect between colleagues and everything is under control,” he concluded.
What seems clear is that it won’t be Sainz’s last win, or at least that’s what other drivers think. If you are persistent and consistent in your decisions, this could be the first of many. “It is always important to win the first race, especially when you are racing for Ferrari, because there are a lot of expectations,” analyzed Fernando Alonso whose first race with the Scuderia, in 2010, was a win, in Bahrain. “I don’t think it will change much, to be honest, for him or for the team because it was just a matter of time because you have one of the two best cars. Only Verstappen, Perez, Leclerc and Carlos can now win a race and it had to come to him. I’m sure it won’t be the last this year,” he said very happily.
“It was a joy for everyone, for Carlos, for Carlos father and for me, because we have shared half a life in F1 and beyond, training in other specialists like the Dakar. Carlos Sr. and I have been pioneers in our specialties with wins for Spain and it’s a pride to see Carlos win there in Formula 1,” he admitted. Alonso’s advice to Sainz is clear: once he has crossed the Rubicon of his first Formula 1 win, he should just keep taking the same steps without stumbling. The rest will come naturally.
Alonso was also critical of the stewards, again recalling the complaints he had ironically made about Leclerc’s movements in the last lively laps of the previous race. “At the beginning of the season, the track was in any case not allowed, there was a black and white line. At Silverstone they were able to go through the escape room at full speed and fight again in the next corner. It’s a different criterion and it would be very good to clarify it here,” he asked. Each with his war.
Source: La Verdad
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