Max Verstappen made his second and final pit stop of the race at the Canadian GP with 27 laps to go, leaving the lead in the hands of Carlos Sainz, with a strategy still undefined.
Six laps later and after the Dutch driver had reduced the gap to the Spanish driver to just under eight seconds, Yuki Tsunoda had a freak accident coming out of the pits and caused the Safety Car to come out onto the track.
When race management decided to bring out said safety car, Sainz was facing the straight leading to the pit entrance, which according to Binotto caused a frantic call to the pits, at which point he fitted a new set of hard tyres.
If the safety car had been decreed a few seconds later, the driver from Madrid would have lost his opportunity to get in to change his wheels and, probably, he would have been an easy victim for both Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, since both had compounds. much newer, but also tough.
The Ferrari director said he was proud of how both the team and the driver reacted at the time of the safety car, but also said that race management could have made the decision much more quickly, since it was evident that the car Tsunoda was not going to be able to get out of there.
“I think it took a long time to get the safety car out and at the time Carlos was leading the race, they decided when he was just at the end of the main straight, coming into the last corner,” Binotto explained.
“The team has reacted very well, and also the driver himself to enter the pits. I think we only had a second to react and we did it instantly.”
“Without that reaction, we would have been in a very difficult situation for Carlos, and I repeat, I think we need more precise [race direction] decisions. They took a long time to decide.”
While Sainz ‘s hard tires were already at a sticky point, his track position advantage over Verstappen would likely have been reduced, until the safety car prompted the call from Ferrari.
Speaking about it, Binotto admitted that the team had already thought about calling in Sainz to fill the position with Hamilton , as he was also showing a very fast pace.
Asked how the race would have gone without the appearance of the Safety Car , Binotto said: “It’s hard to judge. We know that to defend the position he should have been very fast on track, lapping at least 17.4 or 17.3”.
“We were even discussing whether to stay on the track or pit just to also protect ourselves from Lewis, who also had new tires and was being very fast, so we were monitoring the situation very closely at the time.
“It’s very difficult to judge and say how the race would have ended without that safety car.
