Frederic Vasseur has only been leading Ferrari since the beginning of this year, and in the 15th stage of the championship, Carlos Sainz took the first victory of the season for the Scuderia – it became the first major success for the team leader. Moreover, it should be noted that it was a wonderful victory, achieved in a sharp confrontation with strong opponents.
“I am proud of what our team has achieved this weekend, everyone did a great job,” said a satisfied Vasseur after the finish of the race. “We knew we were making progress and in Singapore we were able to literally get the most out of the SF-23, thanks in part to the excellent work of our specialists at the Maranello base.
Today we proved that we can achieve success not only in qualifying, but also in the race. It was dictated by Carlos, who was always in control of the situation on track and performed competently especially in the last ten laps, when he gave Lando Norris the opportunity to use DRS so that he could defend himself against George Russell.
If we talk about Charles Leclerc, the plan was this: he had to show high speed in the first part of the race, so he started on soft tires. At first everything went well, but then unfortunately the safety car appeared on the track and after the pit stop Charles lost time due to traffic in the pit lane. Without that he probably could have reached the podium.
Then we had to drive more than 40 laps on the hard tires, and here Carlos acted very correctly and checked their wear.
Of course, we are happy that Ferrari has become the first team to break Red Bull’s winning streak, and we are happy that we have earned a lot of points as it allows us to continue the fight for second place in the Constructors’ Championship. Today we did well, but let’s not indulge in unnecessary enthusiasm: we achieved success in one race and have the right to enjoy it, but next weekend everything will have to start again.
We know that the Suzuka circuit has completely different characteristics and that new challenges await us there, but we will do everything we can to continue the positive trend.”
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.
