Well-know Italian journalist Giorgio Terruzzi has criticised Spanish driver Carlos Sainz as he believes that his actions have cost Scuderia Ferrari and Charles Leclerc the race win in the Monaco Grand Prix last weekend.
The Monte Carlo event was inexplicably delayed at the start presumably to monitorize the changing weather conditions. After the start, Charles Leclerc and his Maranello team-mate Carlos Sainz kept P1 and P2 in the opening stages, with the Red Bulls of Sergio Perez and Max Verstappen still behind.
With nothing to lose, the Austrian team decided to pit their drivers for Inters a few laps in, a call that Ferrari was not able to manage in the best way possible.
The Maranello team initially asked Carlos to pit in order to cover Sergio Perez. The Spanish driver felt that it would be best to continue until the track is dry, but did agree to pit. However, Ferrari changed their mind with Charles Leclerc, and decided to bring him in for Inters, but it was too late as Perez had already reduced the gap on his pit window, so the Mexican was able to gain a position against the Ferrari.
As Carlos Sainz continued on the used full wets, Charles closed the gap and by the time Ferrari decided to call both of them in, there was 3.5 seconds between them, which meant Charles Leclerc lost more time in the pits.
Instead, they made a howler by bringing the Monegasque into the pits, before realising what they had done and telling him to stay out.
Charles had already entered the pit lane though, and a furiously screamed “What are you doing?!” over the radio.
The time the Monegasque driver lost in the pits cost him a position to his title rival Max Verstappen when he pitted just behind Perez on the next lap, while the Williams of Nicholas Latifi held up Carlos Sainz, which meant he lost the lead to the 32-year-old Mexican driver.
Italian journalist Giorgio Terruzzi feels that Carlos Sainz put the Maranello team in a difficult position by staying out longer, as they did not know what to do with Charles Leclerc later on, although the Ferrari pit wall made the decision to keep Carlos on track at the last moment.
The fact that the Spaniard did not get the victory, in Terruzzi’s eyes, compounds what he feels was a selfish move.
“Sainz decided the strategy on his own,” he wrote in the print version of the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera – “These are choices on which the feelings of the drivers weigh a lot. The fact is that Carlos was not racing to win but to protect Leclerc. He smelled the opportunity he has always been waiting for, he wanted to dare, he thought he should have won. Instead, his move sent everyone on a tilt where tactics are decided, without even bringing home the consolation of seeing the second Ferrari driver on the top step of the podium. Therefore, it was a misinterpretation of the driver. Not so much on the tyres but on his role within Ferrari, in a season that is entirely on Leclerc’s shoulders.” – he added.
The Italian admits that the strategic mistakes made by the Maranello team “would have made a sloth lose its nerves,” but he still puts the fact that Leclerc finished fourth while Sainz lost out on the win firmly at the 27-year-old’s door.
“Carlos was not very useful to Ferrari, he finished P2. But behind Perez, not exactly a strategic masterpiece. And he was the one who decided the strategy,” he added.
Carlos Sainz’s 18 points in the Principality put him just one point behind Mercedes’ George Russell in the battle for fourth in the Drivers’ Championship, while his Maranello team-mate Charles Leclerc has lost further ground to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen and is now nine points behind his title rival, ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
