Scuderia Ferrari was expected to respond after the Imola race and so far the Maranello team can be happy with how events are unfolding in Miami, as Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz scored an impressive one-two finish in the qualifying session for the 2022 Miami Grand Prix, a front row lock out that Scuderia Ferrari had not managed to score since the 2019 Mexican Grand Prix, when the Monegasque started ahead of Sebastian Vettel:
“We are very satisfied” – admitted Laurent Mekies, the French engineer working as deputy team principal and racing director for Ferrari, in an interview for Sky Sport F1 after qualifying – “It is a weekend in which we have to learn everything from scratch and it is very nice to have achieved this result in front of a Red Bull team which has been super fast since the beginning of the weekend.”
In addition to the ‘usual’ great performance of Charles Leclerc, who has become a Q3 specialist, Laurent Mekies praised the very solid result of Carlos Sainz: “It was not easy for Carlos after yesterday’s mistake to put together such a high level of performance, because he lost a practice session and on a new track like Miami this is quite a handicap when you have to look for the last tenths on a single lap. Charles is no longer a surprise, we know that in Q3 he is really special.” – the Ferrari racing director continued.
Now Ferrari’s thoughts and focuse are turned to the race on Sunday, given that Red Bull has an excellent top speed as it has shown since the beginning of the 2022 Formula One season: “They will put pressure on us and we will have to defend ourselves, none of us did the long run and everything will be decided by the management of tires, also because we have never had such high temperatures. We know we still have a lot of work to do together tonight to prepare for tomorrow’s race” – Laurent Mekies explained.
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Regarding the level of top speed, however, the situation has improved compared was could be seen in Jeddah: “We are a little closer and already in Saudi Arabia in the end it was the details that made the difference. We will prepare as best we can, in the meantime we can only be satisfied with this Qualifying session, in Q3 in the second run we went out immediately to avoid further possible issues with the flags as happened in Imola for Charles and in Melbourne for Carlos”. – Scuderia Ferrari sporting director Laurent Mekies concluded, at the end of the qualifying session at the Miami International Autodrome.
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