Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz admitted that it may be more difficult for his F1-75 car to come through the field in the 2022 Formula 1 French Grand Prix at the Circuit Paul Ricard in Le Castellet than the Maranello team had anticipated before the French weekend.
Carlos Sainz currently has a 10-place grid penalty for using a new control electronics in the first two free practice sessions, but the Spaniard will most likely start from the back of the grid in France as Ferrari intends to bring further new power unit elements before Saturday’s FP3 session.
The Maranello team wants to start from the back of the grid with Carlos at the Circuit Paul Ricard given the fact that the next round of the 2022 Formula 1 season takes place at the Hungaroring circuit, where it is much more difficult to overtake. However, yesterday Carlos Sainz found out that it may not be so easy at Paul Ricard either.
The Ferrari driver confirmed that being able to rely on some extra straightline speed would be the “best medicine” in order for him to be able to attempt overtaking moves: “I tried a couple of moments with other cars to overtake, because I know I’m going to need to overtake a lot. And I must say that it was a bit trickier than expected mainly because there’s a tailwind on the back straight and, with this tailwind, it looks like the slipstream and DRS effect is a bit low. But I don’t have any other choice, I need to find ways to overtake and the best medicine for that is to just be a bit quicker come Sunday than what we are. Let’s see when everyone is running the engines modes flat out if we have the top speed to overtake. I hope we do, because I need to make up a lot of places.” – Carlos Sainz explained at the end of FP2.
When asked if indeed he will start from the back of the grid in the French Grand Prix, Carlos Sainz added: “We will see… I mean I took 10, so you can expect what’s coming next.”
At the same time Carlos Sainz is confident the F1-75 car will be able to show a great pace at the Paul Ricard circuit, after topping the timesheets in the second free practice session:
“Well, it was definitely a positive Friday, at the end not many laps on the short run on the low fuel, but every lap that I did was competitive. So it shows that the steps that we’re taking and the direction that we’re taking is going in the right direction, focusing more in the long run because I’m not going to be in that fight for pole position, given the amount of penalties, and in the long run there’s a bit of work to do but, at the same time, some encouragement from the short run.”
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The Spaniard also pointed out that tyre wear will once again be a key factor given the hot conditions:
“It is very hot and, so far this year, every time we’ve seen it’s been hot the deg increases massively on these new Pirelli 18-inch tyres, and it’s going to be higher deg I think than what it’s been in the past here in Paul Ricard. So there’s work to do. Max [Verstappen] was very quick on the medium tyre, I was quick at the beginning and slow at the end, so all that speed that I had in the short run, I wanted to make sure that it translates into the long run.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz.
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