If a single image were to sum up the pitiful weekend that Ferrari experienced, it is certainly that of Carlos Sainz trying, in vain, to get out of the wet grass where his car was sliding like Bambi on the ice.
On the 54th lap, the Spaniard had just lost control of his car. In the same sequence, Alexander Albon damaged his Williams while trying to avoid it. The race was over for both, who however made peace afterwards, one recognizing the unfortunate accident of the other.
Back in the paddocks, Sainz joined his teammate Charles Leclerc, who had returned ten laps earlier. The Monegasque had struggled so much that he was presented with the blue flag: more than a lap behind the leaders, he had to leave the way clear for them. An obvious humiliation for the one who had won the previous event, in Monaco.
Shortly after this affront, he entered the wells and never returned.
After a dream weekend in Monaco, where Sainz had also finished in third place, the Reds found themselves in hell in Montreal. An already difficult qualifying had left them in 11th and 12th place on the starting grid. And once the start was given, “we were never competitive,” summed up Sainz.
“Each lap, I lost a second, then 1.2, then 1.5,” Leclerc said. When I stepped on the accelerator, I never knew what to expect. […] When the track was wet, we could try to recover in the turns, but when it dried, we were dropped on the straights. »
After Leclerc dealt with engine problems, the team tried everything by swapping its intermediate tires for hard ones, even though it was expected to start raining again any minute. “Hold on for two laps, then it’ll dry and we’ll go fast,” his race engineer told him over the airwaves. The experience did not last.
“It was the best we could do at that point,” the runner defended. I knew we wouldn’t finish in the points, so we had to try something. I’m more frustrated with the overall performance than with this choice. If it had worked, it would have been our only chance to finish 9th or 10th. »
The collapse is complete for the team which had arrived in the metropolis as the most serious candidate to (finally) threaten the hegemony of Red Bull in the constructors’ championship. We will have to start again in two weeks in Spain.
“It’s going to take more of Monaco and less of Canada,” said Sainz to illustrate the pace that the Scuderia will seek to regain for the rest of the season.
In his eyes, the first seven races of 2024 were more representative of Ferrari’s true identity than the last. Both drivers each won an event and added seven additional appearances on the podium. In this sense, the Canadian Grand Prix looks like a mistake.
“We have to understand what happened,” Sainz insisted. “In qualifying, we could have managed the tyres better. And in the race, we were stuck in the middle of the pack and we were unable to progress. It never clicked. It was not our weekend.”
We couldn’t have said it better.