Ferrari came under fire once again after the French Grand Prix as fans questioned its strategy with Carlos Sainz, and the Prancing Horse as well as the Spaniard were quick to defend the call.
The Spaniard powered his way from the back of the grid and found himself contending for a potential podium position. Sainz made it up to fifth before disaster struck under the safety triggered by teammate Charles Leclerc. While pitting, Ferrari released Sainz straight into the path of a Williams car, triggering a five-second penalty for an unsafe release.
With a time penalty, drivers can either serve it during the race the next time they pit or finish out the race and be docked afterwards. Sainz continued his podium hunt, passing George Russell before battling Red Bull’s Sergio Perez.
But as Sainz started to pass Perez for the podium spot, the broadcast showed Ferrari calling in the Spaniard to box as he overtook the Red Bull driver. And, Sainz was already past the pit entry.
The Prancing Horse’s sporting director and head of race strategy, Iñaki Rueda, addressed the controversy and how the call that caused a social media stir was delayed on the broadcast. It actually came several turns earlier.
“The way that television production feeds the data to the viewers, it has a delay in it,” Rueda said in the team’s regular post-race analysis. “In this case, you saw Perez and Carlos were fighting on lap 41. We were talking to Carlos, and we saw that Carlos could not overtake Perez on the back straight, and in Turn 10, we actually called Carlos in.
“Of course he was fighting with Perez. He thought he would have him the lap after, and that’s why he decided to [say]: ‘Please don’t come in. Not this lap.’ Now, you were watching the television live. That call came on the television feed at Turn 15, right after the pit entry: which is nonsensical, because had we called the driver so late, he could not actually have reacted to our call.”
Ferrari opted to pit him because of tire life. Sainz was on a medium tire, and according to Rueda, the life expectancy is approximately 25 laps. But after the safety car, there was still 35 to go. The director of strategy explained how once a driver is past the life expectancy of the tire, they have to “nurse” it and go slower or else it could trigger a tire failure.
The time penalty also changed the team’s approach to the final stint given how Sainz would have had to nurse the medium tires to finish the race. He may have overtaken both Russell and Perez, but Rueda said Sainz “was never going to be able to open a five second gap” over those two while nursing the tires.
Sainz didn’t hesitate to defend Ferrari’s strategy on Sunday.
“I think the team is doing a very good job on strategy this year,” Sainz said to Sky Sports television. “At Ferrari we get super-criticised for things that other teams might be going through also in their pit stop windows.
“Every time there is a tricky moment on strategy, we are discussing things, but we are not a disaster like people seem to say we are. We like to discuss things, we are open about them.”
The Spaniard later added, “The team has a lot more data on the computer, they have a lot more numbers to go through, and if they took that decision, I’m 100% convinced they did it with the best of intentions and the best spirit.”
