It was not a memorable Sunday for Carlos Sainz in Imola. The Spaniard, who started from fourth position (after Oscar Piastri’s grid penalty), finished in fifth place. He was overtaken by the Australian after the pit stop, unable to keep up with him towards the end.
STRATEGY INFLUENCED BY RUSSELL AND SEVERAL PROBLEMS WITH THE CAR
During the first stint Sainz initially kept pace with teammate Charles Leclerc, then lost ground as the laps went by. For both of its drivers, Ferrari opted for a late stop compared to McLaren, but the strategy was heavily influenced by George Russell’s Mercedes, which stopped after 22 laps and which, in fact, only led to the undercut, which allowed Piastri to climb to fourth position:
“There certainly wasn’t much pace today, and it would have been difficult to maintain the position on Oscar in any case.
“The problem was that extending the stint didn’t give us anything. I could only extend by three laps due to the pressure from Russell, who was undercutting us .”
Added to this was a whole series of problems with his SF-24, which affected Sainz’s performance:
“From the pit onwards, honestly, I wasn’t happy. It was a difficult weekend for me. Yesterday, after qualifying, we saw a couple of problems with the car, which certainly didn’t help us today.
“We need to investigate calmly and see what we can change so that in Monaco, I won’t suffer from the problems I had today. Then, I am convinced that we will recover well.”
The Spaniard didn’t want to go into too much detail, simply adding:
“The problems are on the aerodynamic side and also on the engine, especially at the start of the race.”
It must be remembered that in Imola Ferrari decided to fit the third power unit of the season on Leclerc’s car for precautionary reasons. Team principal Fred Vasseur also spoke about the Spaniard’s difficulties and explained:
“Sainz’s problems were linked to traffic on the track and tyre management. He overheated the tyres too much. We thought about the strategy to cover the Mercedes undercut, but it was a combination of things.”
THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALIFICATION
As is now known, the SF-24 has reversed the trend of Ferrari single-seaters in recent seasons, proving to be more competitive in terms of race pace rather than in qualifying. On tracks like Imola, where overtaking is very difficult, Saturday’s result certainly has greater weight, as Sainz highlighted, reiterating a concept also expressed by Vasseur:
“The most important thing is qualifying on this type of circuit because if you start in front, you will definitely end up in front. Qualifying for the moment is the weak point of the car that we have to look for.“
Speaking about the updates brought by the team, the Spaniard added:
“I can judge the updates by what Charles has done. He had a good race, he was there with a good pace, it means that we are still in the race .”
On the horizon, the calendar offers the appointment where qualifying has a specific weight throughout the season, namely the Monaco GP.
Sainz is convinced that Ferrari can also do well on the flying lap on the Monte Carlo circuit:
“Monaco is such a particular track that the top four cars can all go on to win with a good lap in qualifying. Q3 will be a good time. I hope we will all be there very tight.”
