Carlos Sainz achieved a tremendous first victory in the 2022 Formula 1 British Grand Prix, after regaining the lead of the test in the final moments, when he was favored by a strategy in the last laps. The Spanish driver mounted a new set of softs when the safety car came out that caused Esteban Ocon’s Alpine to stop in the middle of the track, and that allowed him to overtake Charles Leclerc.
However, throughout the race, the man from Madrid was involved in a controversial exchange of messages on the radio between him, his teammate and the team itself, who were not sure what to do with their two cars. Initially, Sainz was the one leading after Max Verstappen’s puncture, but pressure from Leclerc caused Ferrari to decide to reverse the positions, as there was also the factor Lewis Hamilton, who was approaching the fight for victory.
Throughout the test, the Spaniard’s engineer explained to him that he had to follow a certain rhythm per lap if he did not want to see how they forced him to give up the lead of the grand prize, something that was aggravated by the complaints of Leclerc , who demanded that he should be the one to lead by being faster, as it happened shortly after.
“You have to continue at 32.2, if not, we will exchange positions,” said his engineer, while Sainz wanted to be given “one more lap” of margin. Ferrari did not wait and decided that “the pace was not fast enough”, so they would “change positions”.
Although the moment of greatest tension occurred at the restart after the Safety Car , when Sainz was instructed to “try to give Charles [Leclerc] a distance of ten cars [the maximum stipulated in the regulations] so that he could gain space”. That did not sit very well with the man from Madrid, who responded sensibly when he saw what could happen if he did that.
“Please, guys, I have to defend myself against Hamilton. Don’t ask me for these things. Please, please, let’s not invent,” assured the Ferrari driver when he was under pressure from the Mercedes driver, who had shown pace to beat the two single-seaters from Maranello.
At the restart, Sainz managed to pass Leclerc , leaving his teammate in the clutches of hungry Hamilton, Pérez, Alonso and Norris, with whom he starred in a fratricidal duel for podium positions. The one from Monaco defended himself tooth and nail with used hard tyres, while his rivals had a new set of soft tyres, and although he closed all the doors he could, he was unable to hold off the Mexican from Red Bull and the British from the arrows silver, finishing fourth at Silverstone.
