After doing everything he could in qualifying to help his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz is confident the Monegasque driver will be able to keep Max Verstappen behind him in the 2022 French Grand Prix which takes place today in Le Castellet
Charles Leclerc took pole position at the Paul Ricard circuit on Saturday, his 16th pole in car No.16, also thanks to the help of his Scuderia Ferrari team-mate Carlos Sainz, who gave him a tow in Q3, given the fact that the Spaniard had to start the French Grand Prix from the last row as a result of a power unit change, which meant that for Carlos the qualifying session had to value except for collecting some more data and helping his Maranello teammate.
And Carlos showed great teamwork, towing the Monégasque driver to pole position by three-tenths ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and the other RB18 car of Sergio Perez. Now the focus is on the race and Charles Leclerc will have to finish the job by himself, by fighting with both Red Bull cars, with Carlos Sainz hoping to recover as much as possible from the back:
“He will have to fight on his own against Max but I believe he can do it,” Carlos Sainz said in an interview for Sky Sports television ahead of the French Grand Prix – “I think this car in every race we go to is very quick. It’s all about nailing the start and nailing the strategy, which I’m sure the team will do well.”
Scuderia Ferrari have won the last two races, thanks to Carlos Sainz at the Silverstone circuit and Charles Leclerc in Austria, but the Maranello team still has a lot of ground to recover, as their bid to win their first Formula 1 world championship since the 2008 season has been damaged by reliability issues especially related to engine failures.
There has been talk of tension in the Maranello team during this first part of the 2022 Formula 1 campaign, especially after the Monegasque driver lost out to Carlos Sainz in the British Grand Prix as a result of some questionable strategy decisions.
However, the Spanish driver pointed out that yesterday’s qualifying showed Ferrari were working well together.
“I’m happy that Charles got the pole position, that we are up there as a team. I think we received a lot of criticism this year for the strategy and today just showed we are a very solid team and we get on very well, there’s a very good atmosphere and we are willing to help each other as much as possible.” – he added.
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Charles Leclerc thanked Carlos Sainz for a gesture that Red Bull’s Max Verstappen also admitted to being “a smart thing to do” and is now focused on a French Grand Prix that has only ever been won from pole position since it returned on the Formula 1 the calendar four years ago:
“I think it will be tricky because the Red Bull guys seem to be very, very quick in the race simulations they’ve done yesterday. So we’ve worked a little bit on the car for the race. Hopefully, it will go better for us tomorrow. But tyre management will be a thing. We were good in Austria, we struggled a bit more yesterday, but I think we did a significant step up in performance since yesterday so hopefully we can show that tomorrow in the race.” – Charles Leclerc concluded.
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