Fed up that Ferrari is “debased” on its strategic errors

The strategy would be a major weakness of Ferrari? Don’t tell Carlos Sainz! Since the start of the season, blunders have multiplied in this area at the Scuderia. This was particularly the case during the last two Grands Prix: in Hungary, where the leader Charles Leclerc suffered greatly from his switch to hard tires and finished sixth, and in Belgium, where the Monegasque almost lost his fifth place in the track by returning to the pits to put on new tires and set the fastest lap in the race – he however failed to achieve this performance and was finally penalized for speeding in the pits, effectively demoting to sixth place.

On Sunday evening, team principal Mattia Binotto was on the defensive: “If I look back on this season, I think there are a lot of outside perceptions that are different from reality. Sometimes you don’t make a mistake and it can be seen as a mistake.”

Carlos Sainz is obviously on the same wavelength, preferring to put the situation into perspective: “It’s very difficult to generalise, to say that we should have been more courageous or more cautious. Each case would have to be analyzed independently. I’m sure that on a case-by-case basis, each result or each conclusion would be different. Maybe that we could have been a little bolder at one point and played it a little safer at another. For me, the important thing is to continuously improve, to constantly find ways to make the right decisions at the right time. moment.”

Sainz protests that observers are so quick to criticize the Scuderia when it makes strategic mistakes but not to salute its successful tactical choices.

“There were a lot of times this year where we made the right decisions and no one came to say ‘Oh, you made the right decision’ or congratulate us. But at the same time, when there was what we can call with hindsight two or three bad decisions, there was a lot of criticism. I find it a little harder at Ferrari. I find that when I was at McLaren, at Toro Rosso or at Renault, when there was a big mistake, no one came to point it out, criticize us and belittle us as much as is the case at Ferrari”concludes the Iberian.