During his time in Formula 1, Mario Andretti spent 128 races, and about a tenth of them was behind the wheel of Ferrari cars, so even now, when he is over 80, he follows the Italian team closely and appreciates the yesterday’s performance was huge.
“I saw the race and it was great. Congratulations Ferrari! – shared the 1978 world champion in an interview with Gazzetta dello Sport. – This victory was certainly not easy, even though Max Verstappen stopped almost immediately. Carlos Sainz drove excellently from the start and had a great race. I always enjoy Ferrari’s victories – you can imagine how impressed I was by their winning double in Australia!
It cannot be considered an accident – not at all, this is a completely deserved result. Ferrari showed excellent pace in both practice and qualifying. They have been doing well since Friday and it was good to see Sainz giving 100% after his recent surgery, even if it meant missing the event in Saudi Arabia. But now he and Charles Leclerc are capable of beating any opponent.
I have absolutely no doubt that we will see more wins for Ferrari this year as the Scuderia is already overtaking Red Bull. Even the start to her 2024 season was good and it will be interesting to see how things develop as the season progresses, but I am already seeing positive signs. It seems that this time in Maranello they are doing everything right, working correctly with the tires and choosing the right tactics, although previously these two aspects were their weakness.
Sainz’s victory didn’t surprise me at all. I have always said that Carlos and Charles can not only win races, but also championships. About these guys they say: “champion material.” We already see evidence of this and will see it in the future.
I’m a little sad that they decided to sacrifice Carlos to make way for Lewis Hamilton. However, the way he is racing shows that he deserves a place in any team fighting for victories.”
Andretti also commented on the problems Verstappen and Hamilton faced in Australia: “Max’s retirement was an accident. I also find it difficult to accept that the brake failure was caused by an error by one of the Red Bull Racing mechanics. However, what happens within this team, this tense environment, continues to seriously affect everyone.
When we talk about Lewis, over the course of his career he usually had cars with which he could fight for victories. Back then he didn’t even have to give 100%, so he made virtually no mistakes.
But George Russell had to constantly struggle when driving non-competitive Williams cars. And when he moved to Mercedes, he thought he had gone to heaven, but instead he was forced to resist again. But for him this is common, so he is ahead of his partner.
It once seemed like Hamilton was almost a superman, but he is also a man. The same thing happened to Michael Schumacher when, after all the success he had achieved with Ferrari, he returned to Formula 1 with Mercedes, and it turned out that even he could not show good results.
In any case, it is very interesting how Lewis will do things if he becomes a Scuderia driver, because he wants to end his career at Ferrari.”
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.
