The updates seem to be working for Ferrari. In Barcelona many teams have introduced their most important development packages of the 2022 Formula One season, but the Maranello team was once again the one that managed to take pole position with Charles Leclerc and a solid third place with Carlos Sainz, which certainly gives confidence ahead of Sunday’s race.
Charles Leclerc’s Saturday
“The competition with Red Bull has been very close so far” – Ferrari deputy team principal and racing director Laurent Mekies said, in an interview for ‘Sky sport F1’ at the end of qualifying – “We knew that the pole would be decided by a few tenths. Charles had an amazing Q3 lap, even after the first one, which he did not finish in Q3. That lap would also have been enough to get pole. It was very difficult to remain calm and leave with the knowledge that you could not make other mistakes. Charles remained extraordinary calm and did another lap on the same level, I’m very happy for him.”
Focus on tire management
Now, the only thing that remains to be confirmed tomorrow is the progress seen today in tire management: “Let’s say yesterday we saw that we weren’t fully satisfied with the work done in preparation for the race. In the evening we mainly focused on improving race pace, tire management and understanding the effects of our updates on the car’s performance. This is why today we decided to invest some time in the third practice session and do some other long runs. We have learned something more and I think it is natural to encounter this type of problem when it comes to introducing such a large package of upgrades. We will see tomorrow how it goes in the race, we will certainly have other things to learn.”
Updates and strategy
“Updates? Despite the short time we have available, we can say that they work. They gave us extra performance which is why we decided to keep them on both cars. However, we will still need a little more time before optimizing everything”, the response of the Ferrari racing director, who then went on to reveal something too much perhaps about the strategy that the team will try to implement tomorro – “The degradation of tires is very consistent, the highest of the season so far. Perhaps even greater than Bahrain. We decided to tackle this degradation by saving a new set of Soft tires in Q2, luckily we did it with Charles who will be able to count on two Medium sets and a new C3 compound tomorrow. This will give us a little more flexibility in terms of strategy.”
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Carlos Sainz’s Saturday
A final comment on Carlos Sainz’s qualifying session, as the Spanish driver will start from third place: “Carlos is also having a good weekend, he had the speed, but Red Bull is in shape, they are fast. Having Verstappen in the middle of our cars is something we can accept even if of course we are always aiming to maximize the result “.
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