Formula 1 has already arrived in Austria, which marks the halfway point of the 2022 season next Sunday, but the minds of all the protagonists – at least those in Scuderia Ferrari – still seem to be turning to the Silverstone weekend. Never, in recent years, has a victory for a Ferrari driver divided the teams, fans and the media so much.
The majority of fans are convinced that the wrong Ferrari F1-75 car won the British Grand Prix and that the pit wall ruined Charles Leclerc’s race – considered the main opponent in the title battle with Max Verstappen – effectively opening the doors to Carlos Sainz’s first Formula 1 success. Between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz the relationship, on a human level, still seems very solid. On the other hand, what seems to have cracked is Charles Leclerc’s confidence in the Maranello team.
Carlos Sainz’s first career success, on the other hand, may have been the definitive move that should help relaunch the Spaniard’s season. Often behind his teammate at the beginning of the year, in fact, the Madrid native has capitalized on the problems of other drivers in the last two months. Now in the championship he is just 11 points behind his Ferrari teammate and 54 points from Max Verstappen. A significant gap, but not impossible to recover thinking about the many problems that have also affected the Red Bull drivers. The big question that many fans ask themselves, however, concerns the decisions that will be taken by the Maranello team’s top management: will Mattia Binotto decide to bet on just one driver in the second half of the 2022 Formula 1 season? Or will Ferrari continue to attack with two strikers?
Interviewed by Italian daily newspaper Gazzetta dello Sport, the father of the Spanish Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz Sr., said he was convinced that the moment of choice will soon come for the Maranello team: “It seems to me that Ferrari is doing a good job – said the two-time world rally champion – from last year we have seen great progress, both with the engine and with the car as a whole. And not by chance: every decision is the result of calculations. Experiencing the team from the inside, I see a nice staff of engineers and a nice couple of drivers. And both of them are aware that at some point it will be necessary for Ferrari to focus on a main driver. They know very well that there is no driver more important than Ferrari”.
As they wat for that choice, however, both Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc will do everything possible to reduce their gap from the top of the championship starting with the next round of the 2022, the Austrian Grand Prix at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.
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