“Even Formula 2 or Formula 3 teams do a better job with strategy and their pit stops than Ferrari!” – Rumms, ex-Formula 1 driver Nico Rosberg’s announcement on “Sky” was spot on. The Scuderia had once again not covered itself in glory at the Formula 1 race in Zandvoort and sloppy two pit stops by Carlos Sainz.
First, the left rear tire was missing at the Spaniard’s first pit stop, so he was 12.7 seconds, later Sainz received a five-second penalty for an unsafe release when he was let out in front of the Alpine by Fernando Alonso.
“I can’t understand it anymore,” expert Ralf Schumacher shakes his head on “Sky”. “Even if it’s a great team: Too many mistakes are made. No consequences for that – nothing seems to have changed in Italy,” said the German. “That’s not possible,” agrees his compatriot Rosberg.
Sainz defends Ferrari
But Ferrari seems to have gotten used to these blunders. At the very least, Sainz appears to be downplaying the forgotten tire incident, though he says he “wasted a lot of time” doing it. “We’ve already seen that at Mercedes and also at Red Bull,” he defends his team.
“The problem is that it happened to us after some other mistakes we made this season, so it looks like it’s just another one, doesn’t it?” said the Spaniard. “But I’ve seen a lot of pit stops in Formula 1 where someone drove into the pits and then the tires weren’t ready.”
At Sainz’s pit stop there were two other incidents. He and Sergio Pérez each had to answer to the race stewards for an offence: Sainz for approaching his pit position “in a dangerous manner”, Pérez for driving over the Ferrari crew’s impact wrench. In both cases, however, the commissioners did not impose a penalty.
Five-second penalty for Sainz
In Pérez’s case, Ferrari’s impact wrench was a little further out than usual, and he also tried to get back into the fast lane as soon as possible. The stewards took into account that the pit lane is shorter and therefore narrower and did not award a penalty.
Sainz drove very close to the Red Bull staff and also touched the hose of an impact wrench with his right rear wheel. But here, too, the stewards decided that this was due to the narrow pit lane in Zandvoort, so that he also went unpunished.
However, the stewards were less generous when the Ferrari driver made his third pit stop on lap 57. They did not accept the argument that the pit lane was narrow for the unsafe release and imposed a five-second penalty.
For team boss Mattia Binotto, this decision was dubious: “I don’t know if it was the right decision, it was a tough decision” and “not necessarily fair,” he says at “Sky”. “We handled Carlos and we didn’t think it was safe with the McLaren so we let him out before the Alpine.”
Sainz angry: “Is that my fault then?”
“It was definitely safe with Fernando at the time,” confirms Sainz himself. “But then I had to hit the brakes so as not to run over the McLaren mechanic who had run into my path. And this braking maneuver then has for the unsafe clearance,” he says. Because the car went into antistall mode.
“When I received the clearance from the mechanics, Fernando was far away,” he gets angry and also criticizes his compatriot: “I’m pretty sure that Fernando exaggerated a bit and touched me so that I got a penalty. “
That also helped, because the five-second penalty meant that Sainz dropped from fifth to eighth place – including behind Alonso, who finished sixth.
But Sainz is angry: “Is that my fault? Is that my team’s fault? No, it was this guy with the jack at McLaren who ran in front of my car, so I had to brake.”
“I was really frustrated because I thought I had saved someone’s life and not created a dangerous situation.”