Scuderia Ferrari Mission Winnow’s year of on-track action came to an end today. Bringing the curtain down on this busy season was Carlos Sainz. On this, the last of two days of testing the 2022 tyres at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit, he completed 151 laps, equivalent to 797 kilometres, around three times the distance of last Sunday’s race.
Taking over. Before driving, the Spaniard was able to talk to team-mate Charles Leclerc and simulator driver Antonio Fuoco about their time in the mule car yesterday. Carlos tried different compounds, acquiring plenty of data, which will be useful when it comes to strategy management for next season. That is when a completely new generation of cars will take to the track, built to regulations aimed at enhancing overtaking opportunities and duels, thus making for even more spectacular racing.
Impressions. At the end of today’s eight hours on track, Sainz had this to say: “I’m happy with the number of laps we managed to do. I’m more tired mentally than physically, because by the end of the season, you’re super fit, but in your head, you have concentrate right to the end, because you are still driving a Formula 1 car. Being able to test these 18 inch tyres a lot was very interesting. There are obvious differences but I’d say that, overall, they are going in the right direction. From what I could feel today, I think it will call for a change to certain aspects of one’s driving style, but after all, we already knew we would have to do this with the cars we will get to drive next year being completely different to the ones we used up until last Sunday.”
Summary. Over two days of testing at Yas Marina, Scuderia Ferrari ran four drivers and two cars. The mule car used for 2022 tyre testing completed 314 laps, (151 with Sainz, 87 for Leclerc and 76 with Fuoco) a distance of 1658 kilometres. This year’s race car, the SF21, did 143 laps (756 km) running only on the first day, when Fuoco did 70 laps and Robert Shwartzman completed 73. The Ferrari Driver Academy’s Russian student also drove today for the Haas team at the wheel of their VF-21, doing a further 130 laps, thus bringing his total over the two days to 203 laps and 1073 kilometres.