The third place achieved by Carlos Sainz in the Austrian Grand Prix is oxygen for Scuderia Ferrari. There are several reasons. The Italian side had not brought home trophies since Charles Leclerc’s splendid victory on the streets of Monte Carlo in Monaco and was coming off very difficult weekends in Montreal and at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcelona. Even the Spielberg weekend, up until the sixty-fourth of the seventy-one laps scheduled, did not seem destined for great smiles, then came the accident between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris which transformed Carlos Sainz’s fifth position into a more prestigious placement on the podium at the 4.318-kilometre Red Bull Ring in Spielberg.
It is not a great moment for the Maranello team, the role of anti-Red Bull is distant and now even Mercedes has positioned itself ahead. It is true, the margins are very small and recovering them (even from one weekend to the next) is not an impossible task, but this is a discussion that applies in the direct comparison with the George Russell/ Lewis Hamilton duo, certainly not with McLaren (which has chipped another ten points away from Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings) and Red Bull, indeed, the number 1 Red Bull. While McLaren and Mercedes grow, Ferrari takes a step backwards, the drivers say it but so does the overall Formula 1 standings ahead of the British Grand Prix.
Team principal Frederic Vasseur’s main comments at the end of the Austrian Grand Prix point to what would have been possible, a message that invites caution by drawing a scenario where the change of pace could come quickly. The French manager noted that in the qualifying session at the Red Bull Ring, Charles Leclerc was a tenth ahead of Lando Norris when he reached turn 3, indicating that completing that lap would have altered the perception significantly. Frederic Vasseur mentioned that the Maranello team had improved the car before qualifying and anticipated that having two practice sessions on Friday at Silverstone would be beneficial. He acknowledged that Ferrari had experienced both good weekends, where they were faster than everyone, and others where they lost ground, but emphasized that the team’s reaction had been positive, particularly on Saturday. He expressed optimism about the next round of the 2024 Formula 1 championship, the British Grand Prix at the Silverstone circuit, mentioning ideas in the pipeline and forthcoming updates.
At the Red Bull Ring, besides the performance of the SF-24, which confirmed itself only as the fourth force on-track, what was missing was also Charles Leclerc. On the contact with the McLaren MCL38 of Oscar Piastri that compromised his race right after the start there is also a dose of bad luck, but it is true that the risks increase in proportion with each row lost in the qualifying session.
The error on Friday afternoon in the sprint qualifying, combined with that in the Grand Prix qualifying, heavily marked Charles Leclerc’s weekend in Spielberg. Immediately after getting out of the SF-24 car, the Monegasque driver expressed relief that the race was over. The aftermath of a negative weekend was evident, as Charles Leclerc did not hide his concern even for the upcoming weekend at the Silverstone circuit.
He felt it would be a difficult weekend, noting that the last three weekends had clearly shown their difficulties and that they did not yet have a magic solution. Charles Leclerc mentioned that there are very few coincidences in Formula 1, especially when evaluating two consecutive weekends. He stressed the need to analyze the situation, acknowledging that while they had made a step forward, there were still other limitations that needed to be examined to try to eliminate the problems definitively.
Leave a Reply