Pole position was the best result Ferrari could achieve after seeing the pace they had since Friday at the 2022 Formula 1 French Grand Prix, but it was achieved thanks to teamwork between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz.
During Q3, Carlos Sainz offered to give Charles Leclerc the slipstream , thus helping his teammate in the second sector, a section in which the Red Bulls had everything to win due to their great top speed.
The Spaniard, who was accumulating a penalty that will force him to start from the bottom of the grid tomorrow for changing components of the power unit, helped the Monegasque in both attempts in Q3. While the first seemed to have little effect, the second was decisive and gave the Monaco driver his seventh pole position of the season.
At the end of the qualifying session, one of the directors of the Maranello team, Laurent Mekies , spoke to Sky Sports F1 Italia about the fantastic performance of his pair of drivers in Paul Ricard: “The team did it perfectly, a good day for us because it is a team result”.
“It’s never so obvious to do those kinds of plans so well, because it’s very complex in terms of times and spaces between the cars. Both of them have done well,” he said. Bravo to Charles for getting pole, because here we were quite far from Max, and bravo to Carlos, because he was very strong in Q1 and Q2, but also for his work in Q3, this is a team pole. “.
The slipstream idea was not proposed by Ferrari, but was the work of the two drivers, who perfectly applied the plan studied during the morning: “We chose that point to give Leclerc the slipstream because we have very good drivers, they are incredible”.
“We had planned to do it before the chicane, but Carlos and Charles said they wanted to do it after, even though it was much riskier. So we took a bit of slipstream before the chicane and after, which was much riskier. It was their idea, so Good for them!” Mekies exclaimed happily.
“For tomorrow’s race, we must not forget where we were a year ago. The worst of the season due to the great wear of the front tires,” he recalled. “Pole is something to compare to last year, but tomorrow it will be even more important. We have seen that Max is very strong in the race, but our drivers are too. Where will Carlos finish? It is difficult to overtake here, but I think it is possible to think of the top 6”.
If this Saturday Ferrari was able to take advantage of a slipstream strategy to beat the RB18s of Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez , on Sunday it will be the Red Bull drivers who will have the opportunity to fight together against Leclerc. Mekies believes that the pace shown by the Dutchman in the long runs will give the Milton Keynes team a small advantage over the Reds, but the Maranello team look set to fight back.
“The work done in the factory, thinking about the difficulties we had last year, I think we can take it to the race tomorrow, and it can help us. However, I think Red Bull will have a small advantage over us,” he acknowledged. one of the directors of Ferrari.
“We will be there fighting with them. We will see if we can optimize everything with the strategy and tire wear,” he continued. “It will be two against one, an important factor, but it is part of the game, we knew that. However, we believe that we will recover points with Carlos.”
Do you want to read our news before anyone else and for free? Follow us here on our Telegram channel and you won’t miss a thing. All the information, at your fingertips!
