The Sprint Race at the Brazilian GP didn’t bring glory to the Prancing Horse. Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc finished the last sprint event of the season in fifth place, while his Maranello teammate Carlos Sainz took eighth. Both Ferrari SF-23 cars faced challenges from AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo, which is a bit surprising, given the fact that just a few weeks ago, AlphaTauri was the slowest car on the grid, at times even behind Haas.
Frédéric Vasseur, the team principal of Ferrari, commented on the Interlagos Sprint without appearing too concerned of the events that took place on Saturday. The head of the Italian team made things clear at the end of the mini-race: “Our focus is on Sunday’s race. We have one set of new softs and two sets of mediums,” he explained.
The choice to keep one fresher tire for Sunday pleased Fred Vasseur, who analyzed: “Today the softs performed well, but we had to manage them a lot due to engine temperatures.” – the Ferrari boss pointed out.
The Frenchman is also satisfied with the comparison to Mercedes’ rivals: “We did well in terms of tire degradation compared to them.” Frederic Vasseur is not worried about AlphaTauri, which had an excellent Sprint always following the Ferraris: “They had a new set. We knew that the hard tires are not race tires, so we sacrificed Saturday’s activity for Sunday.”
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“It wasn’t an easy choice,” he concluded, “but we hope it’s the right one. The start of the Grand Prix will be crucial.” – Scuderia Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur concluded at the end of the Sprint race which was held on Saturday at the 4.309-kilometre Autódromo José Carlos Pace, located in the city of Sao Paulo.
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