Has the Scuderia become Red Bull’s pain in the second half of the season?
In fact, Ferrari has just done very well at two very different circuits, at Monza and then in Singapore.
What will happen in Suzuka? Could the Scuderia aspire to victory in each Grand Prix and Carlos Sainz surpasses it by two?
The Monza pole sitter and then the Singapore winner didn’t get too carried away after the race in the city-state…
“I honestly don’t think it means much, this year it will be a little like that. We had two great weekends in a row, but these two tracks we visited suited our car. Specifically this one, in Singapore, a circuit with a strong aerodynamic load. »
“I’m incredibly proud of the effort the team has made to bring a better aero package here, but I still think there will be difficult weekends where we won’t be fighting for podiums and where we’ll get fifth or sixth place. We just have to make sure we keep getting these results if that’s the most the team and the car can do on those weekends. »
“But what I’m most proud of is that we had the opportunity to win this year and the team, under pressure, responded well. I also responded well to the pressure and we managed to have a perfect weekend, although it was the only opportunity that Red Bull gave us. »
“And that says a lot about the progress that Ferrari is making, what we are doing in terms of race execution. »
Did Sainz eat lion during the summer?
Either way, it’s a transformed Carlos Sainz back from summer vacation: but what the hell has changed?
“In terms of understanding the car and driving, before the summer holidays I already had a good feeling about everything. I sat down with my engineers over the summer break and we asked ourselves what we could do to start putting everything together properly one weekend, because clearly we have a lot of momentum, we were doing good things but we never managed to put everything together. So we said, let’s see what we can do to improve, because the potential is clearly there this year. »
“And yes, Zandvoort was a very good weekend, Monza was almost perfect and here I feel it was the perfect weekend. I am very happy and proud that when you work, when you analyze everything, you have the speed that I had this weekend. It’s always worth it and now we managed to put everything together and, yes, I am very happy for the engineers, for the mechanics, for the team, for everyone. »
On a more personal note, Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris, former teammates and still good friends, finished in the first two positions of the race… we felt the respect and complicity between the two men after the Grand Prix.
“You always feel a little better when you have someone you get along with and respect, both as a driver and as an athlete. As a person it is always more pleasant to share these good moments. »
“And make no mistake, if Lando had the opportunity to overtake me at any time, he would have done it to win, but I knew that 0.8s/0.9s difference was enough to act smart. »
“But yeah, it was obviously a great moment and we joked about it, we laughed a lot about the weekend and yeah, we enjoyed the moment. »
