Schumacher: 'You get the impression they want Red Bull to be champion'
According to Ralf Schumacher, Ferrari have given the impression that they want Red Bull Racing to be world champions. The team will have to make a choice between its drivers, but in the future the tension between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will only increase.
In the opening laps of the sprint race for the Austrian Grand Prix, Leclerc and Sainz battled it out for second place. As a result, the Ferrari drivers lost sight of Max Verstappen, who was able to build a gap towards the rest of the field. "If Ferrari, your B-team or C-team, keep helping you, then it's good. You get the impression that they really want Red Bull to be world champion", Schumacher tells the German branch of Sky.
Schumacher understands little of Ferrari's strategy. In Silverstone, the team gave the better strategy to Sainz, while Leclerc had to continue on old tyres. The German analyst thinks Ferrari wanted to make sure Leclerc ran away with victory in Austria.
Tension between Leclerc and Sainz increases
"They probably want to push Leclerc again now, but both drivers don't agree. I think you can see that. They were very hard on each other. Maybe Leclerc could pull away a bit or Sainz was called back, I don't know", he continues.
Schumacher thinks team boss Mattia Binotto is going to have a tough job managing the two drivers. "There is no longer an agreement. At the moment the two wouldn't go on holiday together either. They don't really look at each other either. You do notice that."
How ignorant to even be commenting about the World Championship when the majority of the comments come from idiots who don't even understand the sport. Officially the only recognised Championship is that of the constructors. It was designed to be that and is still only that. You can whitter about individuals for hours better or worst, but miss that your understanding of F1 is totally nil. Want to go to a site that discuss's differences between drivers fine, but don't try and pretend to know anything about the sport when you don't even know its history or purpose
Its because Carlos is also fast and coming along with experience. That in his mind makes him believe he can fight with the talented Leclerc. But the red team should start looking at the scoreboard and keep an eye on Verstappen in relation to Leclerc. Its a tuff one for Carlos. But im sure if him and Lerclers pionts were reversed Ferrari would have given him the number 1 track priority also. Thats if they dont start pulling the clown tactics again. Come on Ferrari, Lerclerc world champion in a Ferrari would be a marvel to behold.
You know this is going to blow up in Ferrari's face and push Carlos to go back to Reb Bull with Max.
Ferrari strategists have been totally off this year. Together with reliability issues, this has been the reason they are not top of both championships. This has resulted in them not afforded the luxury of allowing their drivers to race freely. They have to prioritize Charles over Carlos as the only logical solution for the remaining races!
I do believe Ferrari will indeed hand the title to Max. Simply because the two Ferrari drivers are close on points and will continue to take points off each other, whether it's trading wins or being next best. Meanwhile at Red Bull, Max will be unchallenged by his team-mate regardless of the points. Then you factor in Ferrari unreliability. If Ferrari want to beat Max to the title, they will have to pick a driver to go up against him and have the other as number two. I think it's fair to say LeClerc should be that driver. He overtook Max 3 times in Austria to claim the win. Would Sainz have done that? Both drivers have shown excellent form but I'd put money on LeClerc. Ferrari need to get behind him and push with everything they have and no mistakes and hope for good reliability. Charles clearly has the goods to beat Max. Some tracks suit Ferrari, some suit Red Bull. Red Bull were not expecting to lose in Austria so Ferrari need more races like that. If they don't get behind 1 driver, Max will walk this while Ferrari's drivers jostle amongst themselves.
@44-7xLegend +624813-07-2022 00:02 I hope for an existing tiltle fight but based on past races, hell even the sprint race, i have to agree with you that they are handing the title to Red Bull / Max that way. I agree with you that Leclerc makes the better chance whether it is luck or just that little bit more aggression, Leclerc puts better results out. Think the main thing that Ferrari needs next to a reliable engine is, team spirit, right now it's first camp Leclerc then camp Sainz(in no partucular order) and then Ferrari, the team always have to come first, that's the biggest difference with the other teams. That why when Red Bull of Mercedes wins you see the whole team cheers and not the forcefull cheers you saw when Sainz took his pole a few races back.
Yeah, from what I hear, Ferrari didn't get behind Sainz when he won either. That isn't good. Red Bull and Mercedes will support both of their drivers equally when they win.
Austria wasn't a true measure of Redbull performance since they were suffering from higher tyre degradation. Sainz cannot beat uncompromised Max and Redbull. He could match Checo, but we haven't seen them in a straight fight.
If they had higher tyre deg, how wasn't it a measure of their true performance? Whatever their tyre deg it at a certain track, is part of that measurement surely.
You'll need to reference what you're talking about otherwise there is no context here.
Binotto is disasterous TP, he should only take a short look and copy what Toto practises for years in his team. Mattia is the one who should speak with drivers and tell them directly what is the best for Ferrari , but the question is if he knows it. The scuderia Ferrari should be on first place above all of them (individuals) and should be respected as well. If they want to battle till the end for both titles, they should look up at MB and RB to learn fast how to manage races from pit wall
Schumacher is already paving the road for him to ferrari! he can't say anything else otherwise he doesn't go to ferrari someday.
Every good and great driver has an “Alpha” mentality. Unless one driver is way far ahead, (then the second driver can be told to play support driver). As long as they are close in points, every driver’s biggest rival is the other driver on your team!
@El Super Guapo +175412-07-2022 21:00 In statements, driving etc. you see that Perez is fine with that role, ok he was reluctant to give up his p1 to Max a few races back but that is normal. With Ferrari they both think they make a chance of becoming the World Champion, by now they should have made clear that if it going to be Ferrari it's going to be Charles based in the fact that he is the closest to that number one position. However if they keep fighting it's going to be none of them. (not that Charles is given it if they stop fighting but they will at least be able to concentrate on competing with Red Bull/Max instead of each other. )
Ferrari only interested in Constructors Championship. They said this to start the year.
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