Scuderia Ferrari leaves Brazil with a sixth place courtesy of Carlos Sainz, but also with plenty to regret because of the reliability problem that took Charles Leclerc off the track on the formation lap and left him unable to start the race. The one positive to take away from the weekend is that the fight for second place in the Constructors’ championship is still open as, with points scored in yesterday’s Sprint and today’s race, the gap has come down by 2 points to 20.
Trouble before the start. As mentioned, Charles was unable to race because of an issue on his SF-23 which cut the engine and sent him into the barriers. Carlos did not get the best of starts as a problem with the clutch saw him lose two places off the line to George Russell and Sergio Perez. The race was then red flagged on the second lap following a collision between Alex Albon and Kevin Magnussen and thirty minutes later, at the second start, Carlos therefore lined up eighth on the grid. This time he held his position off the line and then did very well to manage his tyres, lengthening his first stint on the Soft. Thereafter, he had good pace on new Mediums and soon closed on George Russell and Lewis Hamilton, passing them both with clearly stronger pace. From then on, Carlos’ race was about managing the Softs he had taken on at his second stop to ensure he took the chequered flag in sixth place.
Back in a fortnight. The World Championship now has a short break before the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the penultimate round of the season, takes place in two Sundays time.
Carlos Sainz #55
It was a difficult day. The starts were not good due to a clutch problem that we also had yesterday and we lost some positions there.
From there on, I was able to pass both Mercedes on track, but that was it. Unfortunately, today Aston Martin, Red Bull and McLaren were faster than us and P6 was the maximum.
It is a big shame that Charles didn't have the chance to start the race as we could have scored very important points against Mercedes here in Brazil.
Now it’s time to recharge our batteries and hopefully we will be back in good form in Las Vegas.
Charles Leclerc #16
It’s been a disappointing day on my side. Starting from P2, we were hoping to bring home plenty of points to move up in the championship fight, but unfortunately, we had to retire early.
Coming into turn 6 on the formation lap, I lost my power steering and the wheel went stiff, also locking up the rears.
I’m focused on the last two races of the season now, we won’t give up and will fight to finish with the best constructors’ classification result we can achieve. I will give it everything in Las Vegas.
Frédéric Vasseur Team Principal
We are very disappointed because we could have scored plenty of important points for the championship, but we lost Charles even before the start due to a reliability problem, which sent him off the track on the formation lap. He would have been starting on the front row and on top of that, we had sacrificed his Sprint chances yesterday to favour today’s Grand Prix. Now we must investigate carefully to see exactly what happened with his car.
Carlos’ weekend was not without its own difficulties and he struggled at the start with the clutch, losing a few places. However, in the race, especially the first stint, he did a very good job of managing the tyres and was able to go and pass both Mercedes which means that over the course of the weekend we made up two points on our rivals. It could have been so much more, but nevertheless, the fight for second place is still on.