Scuderia Ferrari confirmed at the end of the race that they chose to be conservative in managing their tyres at the Losail International Circuit in the Qatar Grand Prix, Spanish driver Carlos Sainz feels their rival McLaren most likely went “too aggressive”.
Ferrari and McLaren are fighting for third place in the final Constructors’ standings and the Maranello team’s rivals were favourites at the Qatar track, but at the end of the race, the Italian side was still able to score some more points, as Carlos Sainz finished in seventh place, just ahead of team-mate Charles Leclerc finished P8.
Due to an unexpected puncture in the final part of the race, Lando Norris ultimately was the highest-finishing McLaren in P9.
For Carlos Sainz the race became more difficult after the start: the Spanish driver started from fifth place, but lost two places because his used mediums were at a disadvantage to the soft tyre used by many other, while from then on Ferrari were reluctant to push their tyres too hard.
But also Carlos Sainz feels that strategy was key in getting the result over McLaren, which stretches Scuderia Ferrari’s gap over McLaren in the Constructors’ Championship to 39.5 points with just races until the end of the current championship. As for McLaren, with Norris suffering that tyre failure, it suggests the Ferrari driver that his former team went overly aggressive with their strategy.
Show your support for Scuderia Ferrari with official merchandise collection from Puma!
“On the medium tyre it’s clear that I had less grip at the start and at the first two corners, it’s like that. It cost us a bit for sure but it’s what we chose yesterday. We knew it was a disadvantage especially because it was a used medium tyre, not a new one. It was a difficult start and from there on we went very conservative with the tyres, we were very scared for the front tyres. But, yes, it’s been a very conservative race that in the end brought us points against McLaren, who instead went too aggressive maybe. Even with the hard tyre I was very conservative because we were scared not to finish the race so the first fifteen, twenty laps on the hard tyre I wasn’t pushing, until the team told me to push at the end, and that’s where we caught [Lance] Stroll very quickly. Later with the analysis we’ll see for sure that we could have pushed more, but it’s true the others went more aggressive and they paid for that, like [Pierre] Gasly and Norris.” – Carlos Sainz explained.
That is no criticism though towards the drivers who evidently pushed too hard, with Carlos Sainz stressing that a race such as this where tyre management was so dominant was “boring”.
“It’s been a bit of a boring race from my side because a race without pushing is not a race I want to do. But the car had the pace, I’ve been very comfortable all weekend, it’s just that we were slow to be conservative.” – the Spanish driver concluded.
Leave a Reply