Despite claiming his sixth podium of the 2022 FIA Formula 1 World Championship season, Scuderia Ferrari‘s Charles Leclerc has spoken about his disappointment to be leaving the Dutch Grand Prix with just a third-place finish to his name.
After starting on the front row of the grid in second place, Leclerc found himself unable to match the pace of Max Verstappen and was soon looking over his shoulder at the impressive race pace being displayed by both Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team cars.
Leclerc was able to maintain second place over both Mercedes’ cars during his second stint of the race, but with the medium tyres starting to suffer from degradation, the Monegasque driver was called into the pits for the hard compound of tyre.
The Monegasque would rejoin the grid on lap forty-five in fourth place, over twenty seconds behind both Mercedes’ cars. However, the safety car which was sent out due to Valtteri Bottas‘ retirement, would allow the Ferrari driver the chance to pit for new soft tyres for the final stages of the race.
Leclerc was able to use the fresh tyres to his advantage as he would pass Lewis Hamilton on the start/finish straight on lap sixty-six to claim his eventual finishing position of third place.
Reflecting on today’s race, Leclerc admitted that his F1-75 was simply not fast enough today around Zandvoort and the Ferrari driver is already looking ahead to a big weekend for the team in Monza.
“We’re not particularly happy with P3 today after having started second, but we were just not fast enough. The first stint was really good on the Soft compound. I was quite confident, but on the Mediums things became more tricky, especially with Mercedes being so strong on the Hards.
“We were unlucky with the Virtual Safety Car, but I don’t think it would have changed much for us. Our competitors seem to have improved their pace, especially in the race, and this is something we will be focusing on going forward.
“We’re off to Monza next. Although on paper, it doesn’t look like it will be the strongest race for us, we’re always extremely motivated going there. It’s our home race and I can’t wait to see our Tifosi again.”
Carlos Sainz: “Today we had a very tough race and things just didn’t go our way”
While his teammate was able to enjoy a trip to the podium for his work this weekend, Carlos Sainz Jr. endured a race weekend to forget. A number of errors from his team during today’s race saw the Spaniard claim an eighth-place finish.
Starting from third on the grid, Sainz was able to successfully defend his starting position, despite contact between the Ferrari driver and Lewis Hamilton around turn one, threatening to hinder any further progress in the race.
Sainz and Hamilton both escaped from the incident unscathed, but a pit stop on lap fifteen would leave the one-time race winner with it all to do after a colossal mistake from the Ferrari pit crew.
With Sainz heading into the pit, the Ferrari crew were slow in getting the rear left tyre to the pit box and were eventually to perform the pit stop some twelve seconds later. Sainz’s pit-stop woes didn’t end there as a routine pit-stop for soft tyres during the safety car saw the Ferrari driver released back into the pit lane in an unsafe manner, forcing Fernando Alonso to sharply apply the brakes.
Sainz was able to get the jump on Sergio Perez at the safety car restart for fifth place but a five-second time penalty for the unsafe release would see the Ferrari driver tumble down the order come the race’s conclusion.
As his teammate did, Sainz conceded that the F1-75 did not have enough pace to compete with the front runners around Zandvoort today. Sainz also spoke about his anger at receiving a five-second penalty, stating that there was ‘nothing else’ he could have done in the situation.
“Today we had a very tough race and things just didn’t go our way. The set-up we went for didn’t work as expected and after picking up some damage at the start with Hamilton we lacked a bit of pace overall.
“Obviously, the late call for the first pit stop cost us a lot of race time and afterwards I got the penalty for an unsafe release, even though there was nothing else I could have done in that situation as I was trying to avoid hitting a McLaren mechanic in front of me. A tough one, but we’ll now focus on the next race at home in Monza.”
