Ferrari team boss Frédéric Vasseur can look back on the weekend with satisfaction. Although his team did not get the most out of it, Carlos Sainz secured a third place in the sprint race, and both Ferrari drivers will start up front tomorrow as well. Vasseur acknowledges Sainz's strong performance but also has his share of compliments for Max Verstappen.
Sainz has accumulated 74 points so far, extending his lead over teammate Charles Leclerc to twenty points. The Spaniard finished third in today's sprint race, after facing a technical issue in the first part of the Sprint Shootout that almost jeopardized his participation. "It was certainly a good race. He did well yesterday," says Vasseur on F1TV regarding Sainz. "He will start third on the grid tomorrow, which is very good."
Today, Sainz started the race in fifth place, but that could just as easily been last place. "This morning, we had a difficult start in SQ1 because we had a problem with the brakes. He had only one lap, and he drove a very good lap. It's promising, and now we need to bring everything together for the weekend. I hope we can have a good race tomorrow. We told him he could do it in one lap, and he did it. It was a very good session for him this morning."
Although Ferrari has plenty of reasons to be optimistic this weekend, Leclerc had a challenging Saturday. The Monegasque driver set the sixth fastest time in qualifying, but received a penalty for impeding Oscar Piastri. This marks the third impeding penalty for Ferrari in four weekends. "When you get a penalty, it's clear that you need to do better work, but to be honest, the conditions were not easy. The pit lane entry being on the racing line doesn't help either," Vasseur states. "The most important thing is to focus on tomorrow and leave this behind. We will still talk about what happened today, so don't worry about that."
While Sainz remains competitive in all conditions this season, Leclerc's performance fluctuates a lot. As soon as it gets wetter or colder, Leclerc seems to struggle. "This morning, in these kind of damp conditions, he had a bit more difficulty. It was actually the same story in the race. Due to the penalty, he started further back, and he didn't have much luck in the battles because the first three times he tried to overtake the driver ahead, he was overtaken by the driver behind him," observes the Frenchman. "I think he knows it's difficult in such a short race when you don't start at the front. Tomorrow, he will start on the front row, and that's a new opportunity."
Currently, teams like Ferrari, Mercedes and Aston Martin are fighting for the second position, both in the constructors' championship and during the races. Verstappen remains consistently out of reach for his pursuers. "It's true that he is doing incredibly well, no matter the conditions," says Vasseur in an interview with Motorsport.com Italy. "Whether it's dry, wet, damp, with a lot of fuel, or with little fuel, he is always up there. It's clear that his confidence is growing as a result. Under these kinds of conditions, it's very difficult to beat him."