Ferrari’s strategy calls have been a hot topic this season as waves of criticism flood social media, whether it be about tire strategy or what have seemed to be poorly timed pit stops.
Team boss Mattia Binotto commented after the Belgian Grand Prix that when looking “back at the season, I think there is a lot of perception from outside about what are the truth and the reality. Sometimes we are not doing mistakes which have been perceived as mistakes.” Carlos Sainz seemed to agree with the sentiment ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend.
The Spaniard, who turned 28 on Thursday, pointed out that people are quicker to criticize Ferrari compared to other teams.
“I think it’s very difficult to generalize about where we should have been more brave or more cautious. I think you would need to pick one by one and analyze them independently. And I’m pretty sure one by one, every result or every conclusion will be different,” Sainz said during Thursday’s FIA press conference. “Here, maybe we could have been a bit more gutsy, here we could have played a bit more safe. For me, it’s all about continuous improvement and continuously finding ways to make the right calls at the right time.
“And there have been a lot of times during the year where we’ve done the right calls and no one has come to us to say, ‘Oh, you did the right call’ or congratulate us for that, but on the other hand, when there’s been two or three, let’s say call them bad calls with hindsight, there’s been massive criticism about it.”
Prior to joining Ferrari, Sainz raced at McLaren, Renault (now known as Alpine) and Toro Rosso (now known as AlphaTauri). He said while competing for them, he feels like “when there was a big mistake on strategy no one would come and point it out and criticize you and put you down to earth like as much as they do in Ferrari. And this is a fact that I think everyone can agree with.
“While in Ferrari, everything seems bigger. The victory is bigger, the mistake is bigger.”
With just eight races to go in the 2022 season, there’s little room for slip ups with how the championship races are. Red Bull leads Ferrari by 118 points in the constructor standings and both teams make up the top-four in the driver standings: Max Verstappen (284), Sergio Perez (191), Charles Leclerc (186) and Sainz (171).
“When you are at Ferrari, everything is amplified: the affection of the tifosi when you win and their disappointment when you don’t succeed,” Sainz said to journalists Thursday. “It’s the same for the criticisms of the people watching, because I can assure you that we are making fewer mistakes than others but we are always in the spotlight. When you are at Ferrari, it’s like this, and we know it. But we must never forget the jump in performance that we have made compared to last year. We have come back to fighting for victories and we want to continue to improve, pushing all the way to the end of the season.”
Formula One is back in action this weekend with the Dutch Grand Prix.
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