Ferrari 'can't afford' another Leclerc and Sainz duel as Verstappen looks to continue Red Bull Ring dominance

By Sports Desk July 09, 2022

Charles Leclerc does not want a repeat of the tussle he experienced with team-mate Carlos Sainz in the sprint race as he targets victory in the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Ferrari drivers saw Max Verstappen race away from them in the sprint, the championship leader benefiting from the duel between Leclerc and Sainz to take the maximum eight points.

Verstappen eventually claimed triumph by 1.6 seconds from Leclerc, who insisted the Scuderia drivers must not risk losing time and wearing down their tyres by fighting with each other again at the Red Bull Ring.

He said: "I think tomorrow is going to be a long race and tyre management will be quite a bit more important compared to today, so probably tomorrow we cannot afford to do what we did today.

"We lost a little bit of time, but again when Max had the gap he also managed his pace, so we'll never know… but I felt like we were strong towards the end – probably stronger than at the beginning. Whether it [would have been] enough I really don't know."

Verstappen now leads the drivers' championship by 38 points, with Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez, who climbed from 13th to fifth in the sprint, his closest challenger. Leclerc is a further six points back.

The Dutchman has won five of the last seven races and has an outstanding record at his team's home circuit.

He has won three of the last four Austrian Grands Prix and also prevailed at the Red Bull Ring in last season's Styrian Grand Prix.

However, Verstappen labelled his tyres "tricky" and is not anticipating a routine success across the 71-lap feature race.

"We had good pace at the beginning and after that we were very closely matched, it was as a sprint should go, it was quite flat out," said Verstappen.

"I do expect tomorrow is going to be a very interesting battle again."

George Russell will start fourth in a Mercedes that appears to lack the straight-line speed to mount a serious challenge for victory in Spielberg.

His team-mate Lewis Hamilton will start eighth having claimed the final points place in the sprint.

The seven-time world champion has experienced an eventful weekend, crashing in qualifying on Friday and being involved in a first-lap collision with Pierre Gasly before fighting back from 11th to eventually get past Mick Schuamcher's Haas for eighth spot.

"I'm grateful I managed to survive out there today," Hamilton said. "The team did such a great job to get the car back together last night and this morning. A big thank you to them, and I'm glad I brought it back mostly in one piece.

"We are slower on the straights, so I had to wait until I was out of the DRS train to overtake the cars in front. That's why it took a few laps to get ahead of Mick. Hopefully we can race stronger tomorrow – fingers crossed!"

There are six world titles split between the two drivers starting 18th and 19th. Sebastian Vettel, who was handed a suspended €25,000 fine for walking out of Friday's drivers' briefing, finished 19th in the sprint following a collision with Alex Albon that sent Vettel's Aston Martin into the gravel.

Fernando Alonso's Alpine failed to start the sprint due to an electrical issue. Valtteri Bottas, a two-time winner of this race, is the only man behind Alonso on the grid after the Alfa Romeo driver incurred a penalty because of his latest engine change.

Related items

  • Guenther Steiner knows Red Bull’s dominance will come to an end at some point Guenther Steiner knows Red Bull’s dominance will come to an end at some point

    Guenther Steiner has warned Red Bull their dominance of Formula One will end just as Mercedes’ did.

    Red Bull have won the last three constructors’ championships with Max Verstappen completing a hat-trick of drivers’ titles, in the process breaking the strangleholds imposed by Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton in previous years.

    Seven-time world champion Hamilton has endured a miserable start to the new season with his car lasting just 17 laps of Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix as team-mate George Russell crashed out to leave the Brackley and Brixworth-based team 71 points adrift of Red Bull after just three races and pile the pressure on boss Toto Wolff.

    But asked about their difficulties, former Haas team principal Steiner said: “Obviously they are struggling a little bit at the moment. For me, they are a good team, I think they’re a good team. It’s just like it’s competition.

    “Mercedes was dominating for a long time and you cannot always be dominating, you shouldn’t expect that. Now we say Red Bull is dominating – it will come to an end, like Mercedes came to an end.

    “A lot of people are saying, ‘Mercedes is not doing well’ – Mercedes is still in the top four at the moment or top five, they just need to do a little bit better. But it’s how competitive this sport is and you cannot take anything for granted.

    “Obviously Toto would love to dominate the sport forever, but nothing is forever. I think it’s good for the sport and shows also how quickly it goes up and down.

    “Mercedes is still doing OK, they’re still scoring points. Sometimes you forget there are 10 teams and not only three which are allowed to win. I think all 10 should be allowed to win and those are the things you learn when you are outside of the sport like I am now.”

    Hamilton, who is in the midst of his worst start to a campaign, will join Ferrari ahead of the 2025 campaign, leaving a huge gap to plug.

    Steiner, speaking after being announced as an ambassador for May’s Miami Grand Prix, was asked if Carlos Sainz – winner in Australia just 16 days after undergoing surgery for appendicitis – would be at the top of his list if he was in charge at Red Bull or Mercedes.

    He replied: “Toto has no urgency to sign anybody because everybody is waiting until that seat is filled, but I’m sure a lot of people are speaking to Carlos at the moment.”

  • Barbadian F2 sensation Maloney eyes improvements after third-place finish in Melbourne Barbadian F2 sensation Maloney eyes improvements after third-place finish in Melbourne

    Barbadian driving sensation Zane Maloney is focused on consistently improving his performances, as he seeks to continue building on his sweep of the Formula Two season-opening events.

    Maloney’s comments followed another positive weekend in Melbourne, Australia, where he again made the podium after finishing third in the feature race, on the heels of a 10th place finish in the sprint a day earlier.

    This latest podium adds to the 20-year-old’s sprint race and feature race victories on the opening weekend of the season in Bahrain.

    “Satisfied but of course we just need to keep making steps forward. I think we have showed the last three rounds that Bahrain wasn’t a fluke. We have had the pace each round. We just need to keep working on it,” Maloney said in a post-race press conference.

    “I think qualifying from my side is much better than last year. I just need to keep improving that. We have always been fast in the race and made good moves, so we just need to keep going. Everyone is catching up, so we need to keep performing well,” he added.

    In the feature race in Melbourne, Maloney, who drives for British team Rodin Motorsport, finished third behind 19-year-old French-Algerian driver Isack Hadjar and 20-year-old Estonian Paul Aron.

    Two weeks ago in Jeddah, Maloney trailed in seventh in the feature and just missed out on a podium place in the sprint race when he ended fourth.

    He was left ruing his luck again last Saturday when a costly error left him down the field instead of near the podium.

    “Should have been a podium. From my side, I made a big mistake which lost me lots of places. But the second half of the race was really good from my side, so I am pleased with that. Happy to be back on (the podium after a) bit of a chaotic race. For sure the pace has been good all year so far. I think we have proved that each round. It is cool to have a clean Feature Race,” Maloney reasoned.

    The Bajan sensation’s next assignment will be the May 16-18 Grand Prix at Imola.

  • Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to miss Japanese Grand Prix Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff to miss Japanese Grand Prix

    Mercedes boss Toto Wolff will be absent from the next Formula One race in Japan, the PA news agency has learned.

    It is understood that Wolff’s decision to miss the race in Suzuka on April 7 was taken before the start of the new season and is not connected to the team’s performance in Australia.

    Wolff admitted after Sunday’s race at Melbourne’s Albert Park that it is “fair” to question his future as team principal following Mercedes’ troubling weekend.

    Lewis Hamilton qualified only 11th and the worst start to his 18-season career was confirmed when his engine expired on lap 17, while team-mate George Russell was seventh when he crashed out.

    Wolff, who lives in Monaco, will be on the intercom remotely throughout the race weekend in Japan – with his duties at the circuit to be divided between senior members of the Brackley team.

    The Austrian also missed last year’s Japanese GP and the ensuing round in Qatar, following knee surgery. On those occasions the team’s driver development director Jerome d’Ambrosio was handed the effective on-site team principal baton.

    But it emerged earlier this month that D’Ambrosio is set to end his association with the team when his contract expires at the end of the season.

    Wolff admitted in an interview with the PA news agency last year that he intends to scale back his on-track presence in the coming years.

    The 52-year-old, who has been in charge of Mercedes since 2013, recently signed a new three-year deal to remain as chief executive and team principal of the F1 operation he co-owns with Sir Jim Ratcliffe and Ola Kallenius.

    Mercedes won an unprecedented eight consecutive constructors’ titles between 2014 and 2021 but they have tasted just one victory from their last 48 outings.

    Fresh from his harrowing accident in Melbourne, Russell is expected to be at the team’s HQ in Northamptonshire later this week as Mercedes search for solutions to their underwhelming start to the season.

    Russell failed to make it to the end of Sunday’s race after hitting the wall on the penultimate lap in his pursuit of Fernando Alonso.

    The double world champion was adjudged to have driven dangerously by the stewards and was demoted from sixth to eighth following a post-race 20-second penalty.

    However, the 42-year-old protested his innocence in a message posted on social media.

    Alonso wrote: “A bit surprised by a penalty at the end of the race regarding how we should approach the corners or how we should drive the race cars. At no point do we want to do anything wrong at these speeds.

    “I believe that without gravel on that corner, on any other corner in the world we will never be even investigated.

    “In F1, with over 20 years of experience, changing racing lines, sacrificing entry speed to have good exits from corners is part of the art of motorsport.

    “We never drive at 100 per cent every race lap and every corner, we save fuel, tyres, brakes, so being responsible for not making every lap the same is a bit surprising. We have to accept it and think about Japan, to have more pace and fight for positions further up the field.”

© 2023 SportsMaxTV All Rights Reserved.