Ferrari completely relies on a safety car for Carlos Sainz, but it never comes – according to their own statement, they would not have scored points even with a different strategy
Carlos Sainz is one of the big losers at the Formula 1 season finale in Abu Dhabi. The Spaniard had started the race in fourth place but dropped back to seventh place in the final championship results because he was the only driver from the top 10 in the championship to finish without points on Sunday
The last two weekends of the year did not go “as I expected or as we wanted to end the year”, Sainz emphasizes and explains that he is “very disappointed and obviously not happy, considering how close it was at the end in the Constructors’ World Championship.”
After all, he was not the only one to lose three places in the championship as a result of the zero result. Ferrari also missed out on overtaking Mercedes in the Constructors’ World Championship. The Scuderia is just three points off P2 at the end of the season.
“We need to sit down, analyze and see what we could have done better today and what was going on, because the pace this weekend and the general feeling for the car and everything else was not good,” said Sainz, who was eliminated in Q1 in qualifying on Saturday.
Sainz: Hard tire just doesn’t work at the beginning
“From 16th on the grid, we had nothing to lose,” explained the Spaniard, who was one of only three riders to start the race on the hard tire compound. The 17 other drivers all opted for the medium compound at the start, and the risk did not pay off for Ferrari.
“As we have seen many times this year, we always have big problems when we start with our car on harder tire compounds. And it was the same today,” says Sainz, who explains that he had problems in the “dirty air” and slid a lot.
In the end, the hard tire is a tire that “simply doesn’t work for us at the start of a race,” says Sainz, who reveals that he had originally planned a one-stop strategy. However, Ferrari abandoned this plan during the race.
Instead, they sent him out again on the hard tires in the second stint. This made it clear that the Spaniard would have to make a second stop later in the race. But with a conventional two-stop strategy, points were probably out of reach
Vasseur: Without pace, even the strategy is useless …
“When we saw that we had hardly any chance of scoring points, we stayed out for a safety car, which didn’t work either,” said Sainz, who explained with a shrug of his shoulders: “We tried it, but in the end it didn’t work again.”
Ferrari only brought Sainz into the pits two laps before the end and sent him out again on soft tires. After his pit stop, however, he was hopelessly down in P15. “Carlos had some problems with the pace today,” explained Team Principal Frederic Vasseur to Sky
He also confirmed: “The only option for us was either a red flag or a safety car to at least score a few points.” But although the gamble didn’t work out, he doesn’t blame the team. “Strategy doesn’t matter if you don’t have the pace,” he emphasizes.
And that was the main problem today. What’s more, the team didn’t just lose second place in the championship in Abu Dhabi. “I think we had bad races during the season,” said Vasseur with regard to the three points missing in the world championship.
Incidentally, Sainz did not even see the chequered flag in the end; he had to park his Ferrari one lap before the end. According to the team, there was a problem with the engine
