Sainz rues lack of pace for suboptimal result, Leclerc endures strategy disaster at Silverstone
Ferrari came away from the British Grand Prix with just eleven points courtesy of Carlos Sainz who finished fifth and picked up the extra point for the fastest race lap.
Last Sunday's Silverstone round was another race where pace proved to be a struggle for Ferrari. The Italian outfit experimented with two aerodynamic configurations over the weekend with Charles Leclerc having run the new, Barcelona-spec package while his team-mate Carlos Sainz having used the older, Imola-spec SF-24.
With bouncing having posed a severe hurdle for Leclerc in practice sessions, it was ultimately decided to equip both cars with the older configuration for qualifying and the race. After a disappointing qualifying, Sainz looked like a mild threat in the early stages of the race, but faded to end up P5.
At the start, Sainz passed Nico Hulkenberg for sixth place. When rain started to fall, the Spaniard opted to stay out and that worked out for him as the rain eased in a matter of minutes and those on slicks were soon putting in normal lap times again.
The Madrid-born driver managed to move up to fourth place after George Russell retired, even though before pitting again for slicks, he was passed by Oscar Piastri, which dropped him to fifth.
"It was a very solid performance today and I think we maximised the result with P5 and fastest lap. We executed a difficult race well under mixed conditions I was able to close the gap to the cars ahead.
+Unfortunately, when the track dried we were lacking a bit of pace and had to settle for fifth. Clearly, we still need to take a step forward to close the gap to our rivals. We now have some time off to regroup and come back stronger in Hungary," said Sainz.
After missing out on Q3 on Saturday, Leclerc had a brilliant start to jump to eighth on the first lap, but made the switch to inters too early, the loss of lap time in that phase of the race leaving him down in P14 at the flag.
The Monegasque noted: "We had a good start today but unfortunately, the race didn’t play out as we hoped on my side. The rain was increasing from lap 15 and we thought it would get stronger so we pitted for Inters.
"It may have been an aggressive choice, but it seemed that it could be worth it at the time, considering the feeling that I had in the car and our weather prediction.
"Unfortunately, the rain was only really strong enough for those tyres a few laps later and my tyres were worn down by then, so that we haad to make another stop. It went wrong and we have to review our race and make sure we can maximise every opportunity going forward," concluded Leclerc.
