Engine issue forced Carlos Sainz to retire in Abu Dhabi; points were not possible regardless of strategy. A power unit problem forced Carlos Sainz to retire in Abu Dhabi,.

Scuderia Ferrari Monegasque driver Charles Leclerc secured a second-place finish in the 2023 Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix at the 5.281-kilometre Yas Marina Circuit on Yas Island, a position he was unlikely to improve as long as Max Verstappen completed the race. The Italian side’s ambition to outperform Mercedes and claim second place in the constructors’ championship rested on their other driver.

Carlos Sainz Jnr qualified in a disappointing 16th position at Yas Marina. Given Scuderia Ferrari’s recent performance, one might have expected him to achieve at least eighth place. However, Carlos Sainz found himself only one position higher than his starting position when a suspected power unit issue forced him to retire on the penultimate lap. What led to the issues in his race up to that point?

As most drivers avoided the delicate soft tire compound at Yas Marina, opting for the more durable medium rubber for the start to minimize the risk of losing positions on the lengthy straights, Ferrari took a different approach with Carlos Sainz. They chose to wait and start him on hard tires. Initially, this strategy seemed promising as he climbed to third by lap 18, benefiting from others making pit stops.

However, Carlos Sainz was losing significant time. He struggled with the car’s balance throughout the weekend, with a crash in practice and an early elimination in Q1. During the race, running in the turbulent air of other cars worsened their tire degradation, an issue Ferrari has grappled with all season.

By lap 18, Carlos Sainz was nearly two-and-a-half seconds slower than George Russell, who had switched to a fresh set of hard compound tires. To reach the race’s conclusion with only one additional pit stop, the Spaniard would have to switch to mediums. Unfortunately, he was far from close enough to the end of the race for that to be a viable option. This left Ferrari with only one course of action, as pointed out by team boss Frederic Vasseur at the end of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix: “When you have to pit on lap 20 you have no other option but to put a second set of hard. Because if you put mediums on you have to pit lap 30.” – the Frenchman added.

Due to the regulations mandating drivers to utilize two distinct tire compounds, Carlos Sainz faced a situation reminiscent of what Oscar Piastri encountered in Las Vegas the previous week. He found himself obligated to undergo a final, second pit stop to switch to a different tire compound. The Italian side could only rely on the possibility of a neutralization in the running order to work in their favor.

“The option was to put hards [then] hards and to expect that we would have a Safety Car or a red flag,” – the Ferrari team principal explained.

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As the race unfolded without interruptions until the finish, Carlos Sainz gradually descended to the lower positions within the points standings. Despite holding on until the conclusion, he eventually yielded to the inevitable outcome and took a gamble by switching to soft tires. Unfortunately, he was swiftly called in to retire shortly thereafter.

The fundamental issue for Ferrari stemmed from Carlos Sainz’s inability to extend his race stint to the necessary point before experiencing a decline in lap times. While he made his first tire change on lap 20, Ferrari had aimed to reach around “lap 35, or something like this, to do the reverse compared to the others.”

The others they did 15, 20 laps with the medium and then 40 laps with the hard. The target was to have 40 laps with the hard to have a part of the race in clean air and try to compensate part of the deficit.”

“You can always try to redo the race and to say that. But I don’t think so. I think the issue was the pace today and was not the hard or the medium. The issue is that it’s not a matter of strategy, it’s a matter of pace. We didn’t have the pace today and in this case all the strategies are the bad ones.” – Scuderia Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur concluded.