Carlos Sainz’s weekend at the 2022 Formula 1 French Grand Prix began with the worst news, a grid penalty for changing the electronic control unit, which translated into 10 penalty positions for Sunday.
However, the Ferrari team decided to sacrifice the hot race at Paul Ricard to mount more new elements in the power unit of the Madrilenian, thus refreshing his wardrobe of parts so as not to have to sanction again for the rest of the course, and he will start from the bottom of the grill.
Those from Maranello suffered a fire in the Spanish’s 066/7 engine during the last laps of the last round in Austria, so its elements were unusable, thus making Sainz have to mount some components that would mean a sanction.
The British Grand Prix winner enters what is the fourth internal combustion engine , the same number as the turbo, MGU-H and MGU-K . However, he is not the only one who will have to penalize in France, as Kevin Magnussen also changes components of his power unit.
Thus, the Dane and the Spaniard will compete in the classification to decide the driver who will start in the last position, since if one is ahead of the other, he retains priority when they have the same number of penalty positions.
Sainz set the fastest time of the day in Friday free practice on the soft tyres, so he had great pace to be able to fight for pole position with team-mate Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen.
The man from Madrid, in the statements after the practice sessions, was already aware of the first penalty, so he had in mind to come back: “I need to find ways to overtake, and the best medicine for this is to be a little faster than that we are on Sunday”.
“Let’s see when everyone is at full throttle and if we have the top speed to overtake. I hope so, because I need to make up a lot of positions,” concluded the Ferrari driver.
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