Spanish Formula One engineer Inaki Rueda, currently the sporting and strategy director at Scuderia Ferrari, confirmed that the controversial team radio message to Carlos Sainz asking him to pit just as he was overtaking the Red Bull RB18 of Sergio Perez was not what it actually seemed in front of the TV.
There was a lot of discussion as the Maranello team effectively ordered Carlos Sainz to “box, box” just he was battling and overtaking the Mexican for third place at the Paul Ricard track. During the previous laps, the Spanish driver had been discussing with his race engineer regarding the best options for the final part of the French Grand Prix and if making another stop would be ideal also taking into consideration the five-second penalty received for the unsafe release at his first pit stop only adding to the conundrum.
Informed to continue on track, Carlos Sainz passed the Red Bull Mexican driver in the final section of the lap, then, just as he gained the advantage over the RB18 car, the infuriating voice telling him to “box, box” was heard on TV.
“The way the television production feeds the data to the viewers, it has a delay in it,” explained Inaki Rueda in Ferrari’s Full Access video debrief earlier today – “In this case, you saw Perez and Carlos were fighting on lap 41. We were talking to Carlos, and we saw that Carlos could not overtake Perez on the back straight, and in turn 10 we actually called Carlos in. Of course he was fighting with Perez, he thought he would have him the lap after, and that’s why he decided to say: ‘Please don’t come in, not this lap’. Now, you are watching the television live,” adds Rueda. “That call came on the television feed at Turn 15, right after the pit entry: which is nonsensical, because do we call the driver so late he cannot actually react to our call?” – he added.
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The Ferrari sporting and strategy director pointed out that having pitted on lap 18 of the 53 lap race and taking into consideration that the anticipated life of the medium tyres was about 25 laps, ending the French Grand Prix was not really possible: “This actually changed our whole approach to that last stint,” he admits, “because even though Carlos had managed to overtake Russell and Perez, he was never going to be able to open a five second gap on them having to nurse those medium tyres to the end. With this in mind, we decided to pit Carlos and make sure that he came back and got an extra point for the fastest lap.” – Inaki Rueda concluded.
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