Scuderia Ferrari Racing Director Laurent Mekies was asked about the recently improved form of Carlos Sainz, confirming the Maranello team is pleased with the performances of the Spanish driver, but at the same time insisting that does now make him a team leader.
Carlos Sainz joined the Italian side last year and had a solid first season with Scuderia Ferrari in the 2021 Formula 1 season, helping the Maranello team secure third place in the Constructors’ standings and even finishing the Drivers’ Championship in front of his teammate Charles Leclerc. However, the new generation of Formula 1 challengers, which were introduced in the current F1 campaign, have led to a rather difficult start of 2022 for the Spaniard.
Carlos Sainz struggled to adapt his driving style to the F1-75’s handling, a very fast car, but which seemed to be formidable only in Charles Leclerc’s hands, as the Spanish driver was not able to challenge his Maranello teammate in the first races of the 2022 season, which also led to some mistakes made by Carlos due to pushing too much sometimes, as he tried to understand how to capitalize on the pace of the F1-75.
Yet the Silverstone event proved to be a turning point for the Spaniard: the Ferrari driver secured his first F1 pole position and went on to also take his maiden F1 victory. His performance in the British Grand Prix was then followed that by a strong race in Austria where he was on his way to overtaking Max Verstappen for second place when his power unit failed and he was forced to stop his F1-75 car on the side in flames, while at the Paul Ricard circuit, Carlos was forced to start the race from the back row, due to taking a grid penalty for using a new engine as a result of his technical issues seven days earlier at the Red Bull Ring. The Spanish driver fought his way back to fifth place in France.
In a recent interview ahead of the summer break, Scuderia Ferrari’s Racing Director Laurent Mekies was asked if Carlos Sainz’s string form in recent weeks, with Charles Leclerc’s DNF in the French Grand Prix due to a crash, meant that the Spaniard could become the Ferrari team leader in the second part of the 2022 Formula 1 campaign:
“Carlos has had three extremely strong weekends: Silverstone, Austria, France. We are very, very happy with that. It did not show up so much on the final race classifications besides Silverstone because we had other things to deal with.” – Laurent Mekies explained.
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“But you are very right in saying that he has made great progress since the start of the seasons. We made no secret at the beginning of the year that naturally the car was not suiting him very well. We had to work a lot with him, with his engineers, with everybody back in Maranello to make sure we can give him something he is more comfortable with. And these things take time,” he added – “And slowly, it seems that we are heading towards the right direction, which is another great sign for the team and the way we interact. So I think that’s where it is. Does it make somebody a leader or not? No, it doesn’t, it is not what makes a leader or not. We know we have two very, very good drivers. We treat them in a way that we can maximise our championship positions and we want them as fast as they can possibly be.” – the Ferrari Racing Director explained.
Asked to provide some details about how Carlos Sainz and the Maranello team were able to turn the situation around after a difficult start to the season, Laurent Mekies continued:
“Well, at first it comes from Carlos’ ability to analyse what the car does and what he needs from it. And then not only is he able to feel it, but he’s able to communicate it to the engineers and slowly we have been able to transform that into actions in terms of the way we set up the car, and in terms of the way that perhaps we tweak some of the developments and that’s how it happened. You are never sure it’s going to produce the results you hope until you actually see these trends coming. So it’s good positive information for us to see that the trend seems to be there,” he said.
There has been a lot of discussion about possible team orders, especially given the fact that in Red Bull each driver seems to be very well aware of his status, with Sergio Perez moving aside for Max Verstappen on several occasions. The Frenchman replied: “We have always been very clear, you know. We target to have the best result for the team; Ferrari comes first. And then of course there will be a point where we will need to focus more on a driver compared to the other one if the championship position is requiring. So, it does not mean waiting for the mathematical difference that you mentioned but it means being at the point of the season where you think it is the right thing to do so.” – Laurent Mekies concluded.
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