Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz was on his way to a fourth place finish in the 2023 Australian Grand Prix, after a solid recovery following an unfortunate first red flag at the Albert Park circuit in Melbourne which sent him outside the top ten, but the Spaniard was given a five-second time penalty due to his restart crash with the Aston Martin of Fernando Alonso, which ended a very disappointing race for the Maranello team in Australia.
The Italian side left Albert Park circuit without scoring any points in the third round of the 2023 Formula One season, while Charles Leclerc has just six points in the Drivers Championship standings ahead of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Ferrari has collected just 26 points from the first three rounds, which marks the worst starts to a championship for the Maranello team since 2020 and has led to a vocal reaction from part of the Italian media.
Italian daily newspaper Corriere della Sera feels FIA Race Director Niels Wittich made a mistake by referring Carlos Sainz to the steward for the investigations and the subsequent penalty: “Competition leader Niels Wittich gets a zero from us. He, like his predecessor Michael Masi, did everything wrong. He seems to want to cover himself on all fronts, so as not to be held liable.”
“The FIA also gets a zero, because they show no flexibility at all when applying the rules. In fact, the rules are not properly applied at all. They must fire Wittich immediately.” – Corriere della Sera added.
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While there was harsh criticism directed at the FIA for how things were handled at the Albert Park circuit, Corriere della Sera admitted that Carlos Sainz made a poor judgement by attempting a pass on Fernando Alonso at that moment: “Carlos Sainz has to look in the mirror, but his punishment was exaggerated. Charles Leclerc was frustrated after qualifying and was already out after three turns a day later.”
On the other hand, La Gazzetta dello Sport is somewhat more supporting of the call made by Race Control to show the red flag: “They didn’t want to finish a race behind a safety car after the Monza ’22 debacle themselves.” At the same time, the Italian daily newspaper dedicated to coverage of various sports believes Carlos Sainz in ultimately at fault for not taking a podium finish in the Australian Grand Prix: “Charles Leclerc ended up in the gravel because he was too rushed and Carlos Sainz unfortunately went ‘wrong’ at the restart. Before that, he drove forward handsomely and was on for a podium.” – they wrote.
While Corriere dello Sport is much more critical over the way in which Scuderia Ferrari chose to manage the Melbourne round, pointing out that the Maranello team in fact made too many errors in this third race of the season, which led to the disappointing overall result:
“Ferrari is losing patience with the far too nervous drivers. Leclerc immediately went KO, while Sainz had a chance to win a podium, but ruined everything himself.” We have to write about mistakes, plural, because it doesn’t stop at one mistake. It is not for nothing that Ferrari has only 26 points. Leclerc was furious and needs to calm down. Of course, he can’t help Ferrari being too slow, but losing this way only makes everything worse. The podium was deserved for Ferrari, but Sainz threw everything away by hitting Alonso.” – Corriere dello Sport wrote.
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