Austin 20 October 2022
Rising temperatures and clear skies welcomed the Scuderia Ferrari drivers to the paddock for the United States Grand Prix. Both of them were delighted to be back in America. “As you can imagine I love the local cuisine, being a fan of the hamburger, but in fact the whole ambience here is very nice,” affirmed Carlos Sainz. “I think the Austin trip is one of the nicest of the season because of the atmosphere and the enthusiasm of the home crowd. Also the track has plenty of variety and is really beautiful, so we are really happy to be racing here,” added Charles. Today at lunchtime, Carlos presented the Monegasque, who turned 25 last Sunday, with a huge birthday cake on behalf of everyone in the team.
Goals. At today’s usual FIA press conference, Carlos explained to the journalists how the team plans to approach the last few races of the season. “We will use these coming Grands Prix to prepare as much as possible for 2023, looking for any opportunity that comes along to take a race win,” he said. “To be honest, I would prefer to do that rather than getting ahead of George (Russell) in the championship. I have reached a good level of understanding with the F1-75 and I’d like to still get some good results with it.” Charles had similar sentiments when he spoke to the media in the paddock. “We have seen there is still work to do, because in some conditions our car has shown it has some shortcomings. I think we must make the most of this last part of the season to arrive at the start of the next one better prepared,” he said. Of course, I’d like to finish the year in style and we hope that can start here.”
Robert. As planned, Charles will not drive in tomorrow’s first free practice session, because, in accordance with the regulations he will hand over his car to a young driver with fewer than two F1 race starts. The driver in question, who like Leclerc is a product of the Ferrari Driver Academy, is Robert Shwartzman. This will be the Israeli’s first ever outing in an official Formula 1 session and Sainz had words of praise for the young driver when talking to the press. “Robert is a real talent and he already impressed the engineers when he drove last year’s car,” he revealed. “As we know, this year’s car is completely different to those from past seasons so I don’t think it will be that easy for him to go quickly right away, especially as he has never driven at this track. But I’m sure he will do a good job for the team, but most of all I hope he enjoys the experience as much as possible and has fun driving.”