Ferrari will certainly not take the race in Qatar by the hat, because Carlos Sainz withdrew from it due to a fuel leak even before the traffic lights went out. Only Charles Leclerc defended the colors of the Maranello team, but he only finished fifth. Even worse news for them is that the McLaren drivers again recorded a double podium and the Monaco was not eligible this time either. After the event, Ferrari boss Frédéric Vasseur explained the big loss to the “papayas” and at the same time explained why Sainz could not intervene in the event.
In Qatar, it was such a low-fat weekend for Ferrari, unlike Singapore or Monza, the fans did not get a significant result. In Friday’s qualifying, Sainz didn’t even make it to Q3, and in Saturday’s sprint shootout, his teammate didn’t do well either, struggling with track limits. The Monaco man faced the same problem in the sprint itself, after which he finally finished with zero on his account.
The whole thing was nailed down by technical problems on Sainz’s car, so only Leclerc plunged into Qatar hell on Sunday. In any case, the heroes of the weekend were the drivers of McLaren, which he also acknowledges Vasseur. The head of Ferrari considers them to be Red Bull’s main opponents. “All in all, it was a tough weekend. Not only because of the tire and curb situation, but also because of the wind and high temperatures. There was sand on the track on Friday, it was difficult. But we can’t complain because our riders put in an incredible physical performance. And if we look at the last two grand prixes, we can say that McLaren is right behind Red Bull.”
“Suzuka and Losail are circuits with similar characteristics, with a sequence of high-speed corners. We probably had better conditions at Monza and Singapore, but we’ll see what the upcoming races show, including Austin, which is such a mix of these tracks.” pointed out the native of France.
Vasseur he was able to specifically identify the phase of the race where Ferrari fell short of their Woking rivals the most. “We had insufficient pace, but not enough to create such a big difference. We picked up most of the loss during the second stint because we were stuck in traffic and our tires were shredding.”
Before the race, many fans wondered why the fault on Sainz’s single-seater couldn’t be fixed. There was about an hour left until the start. “There are rules that determine when to refuel. When we refueled, a problem appeared. You could say we could have refueled earlier, but it doesn’t work that way. In the end, there was not enough time to replace the fuel tank. I don’t know if this problem is caused by curbs, we need to investigate. There has been damage that probably occurred during the last laps yesterday.’
At the end, the head of the Italian team did not forget to pay tribute to the newly crowned three-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen. “Now it is too early to talk about the fact that he made history. Most impressively, he makes no mistakes. Although he struggles a bit, he is able to react and is impressive even on weekends when Red Bull does not have a good pace, such as in Singapore. He drove an excellent race there and finished in fifth place. He’s doing an exceptional job, but we hope to compete with him.”
2023-10-10 09:59:39
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