Scuderia Ferrari drivers finished third and sixth in the Sprint at the Circuit of the Americas, to pick up nine points, one more than its closest rival in the fight for second place in the Constructors’ championship. The team also gathered plenty of useful data in terms of race pace, which will now be analysed carefully in preparation for tomorrow’s Grand Prix which gets underway at 14 local (21 CET).
Charles. Charles got off the line very well from second on the grid, almost getting alongside Max Verstappen who defended purposefully but fairly going into turn 1. Leclerc was therefore unable to attempt a passing move and came out of the uphill left hand hairpin slower than those around him, finding himself under attack from Lewis Hamilton who managed to get ahead of him. The rest of Charles’ race did not change much. He did a good job of managing the degradation on his Medium tyres to bring home the six points for third place.
Carlos. The team went for a more aggressive strategy for Carlos, putting him on Soft tyres to give him more grip from sixth place on the grid. In doing so, the team was also looking ahead to tomorrow, gathering data on race pace for the two compounds used. This paid off for Carlos, who managed to get ahead of the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the start, but later, tyre degradation over the 19 laps meant the Spaniard was passed by Norris before having to settle for sixth when Sergio Perez also overtook him.
Tomorrow. The team has a long night ahead of it, studying all the telemetry data from today in depth, listening to the drivers, as well as assessing the performance of the other cars, in preparation for the 56 laps of the Grand Prix in which Charles will start from pole and Carlos from fourth spot on the second row.
Charles Leclerc #16
There was an opportunity at the start so I went for it and tried to overtake Max (Verstappen) in the first corner. I lost a position to Lewis (Hamilton) there, Mercedes were a bit stronger in terms of race pace than we expected and so now we have to work on being a step ahead for the race.
We have quite a lot of data available for analysis, as we ran our two cars on different strategies, which helped us to gain an insight into the behaviour of the Soft compound. Hopefully this will give us an advantage tomorrow and we will do everything we can to bring home the win.
Carlos Sainz #55