Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz feels the Maranello team “perfectly” executed his strategy in the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit and also explained why he was unable to follow a specific instruction from the Ferrari pitwall after the Safety car left the track and the race was resumed for the final 13 laps.
The Spaniard took his first Formula 1 race victory at the Silverstone circuit after a solid performance which concluded with a thrilling four-way duel between the Ferrari drivers, the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Red Bull’s Sergio Perez. Charles Leclerc was leading the British Grand Prix and at that stage of the race he looked like the man to beat but as we entered the final part of the race, a safety car reset everyone’s chances.
Esteban Ocon was force to stop his Alpine car on track and the Safety Car was deployed which meant that Ferrari had a difficult choice to make quickly, that of pitting both Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz or just one of them. This time the Maranello team feared it would lose out – like was the case on the streets of Monte Carlo a few weeks ago – if it double-stacked its drivers. As a result, Ferrari decided to call in only Carlos Sainz for a new set of Soft tyres, while the Monegasque, who was still running on the old hard tyres, continued on track. fresh set of softs while Leclerc, running on a slower set of hards, remained in the lead.
Aware that it would be very difficult for Charles Leclerc to defend on the old tyres, Ferrari asked his teammate, who started from P2 right behind him after the Safety car returned to the pits, to try and give Charles a gap of about ten car lengths for a few laps, as Ferrari had hoped the soft tyres would suffer a higher degradation and Charles would later be able to match his rivals.
But Carlos Sainz did not agree with this idea and dismissed the instruction, explaining that in this way he would become vulnerable to third-placed man Lewis Hamilton who was also running at that point on a set of fresh soft tyres.
“Guys, I’m under pressure from Hamilton, please don’t ask these things,” he responded on the team radio. “Please, please, let’s just stop inventing. Stop inventing. I’m under pressure also.”
After the restart, Carlos Sainz easily passed his Maranello teammate and was then able to create a solid gap as Charles battled Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez. The Spanish driver’s call to rebuff the Ferrari pitwall had perhaps been the defining element which had helped him secure his first Formula One victory:
“Honestly, I think today the team managed the race really well, I have nothing [bad] to say. At one point we switched positions when we were at risk of losing positions, of getting overcut by Lewis. I think we did it and executed it perfectly. And then they asked me to do this 10 metres thing and I tried to explain I have behind me probably the fastest man on track today, if I drop back 10 metres, I might lose a bit of a slipstream and if he passes me, Charles is going to be dead meat also. So my decision was to get into the lead as soon as possible, I knew I could be in the lead before Turn 6 with the grip I had on the softs and go from there and try not to affect his race by getting into the lead. I said to the team – ‘leave it with me – I’m going to [take] the lead as clean as possible.'” – Carlos Sainz explained at the end of the British Grand Prix.
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The Ferrari driver feels his decision, that was not met with any opposition by the Maranello team’s pitwall, proves the trust of his team in its drivers’ judgment.”
“Sometimes the driver feeling is there, and sometimes the team might tell you something that you don’t agree with, and you just do your own thing because you really believe in it,” he explained – “I trust the team a lot and today we executed a very fine race. We trust each other in these kind of scenarios as you saw. Going forward, today we did it well, so we keep doing it that way.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded.
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