Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto stated that he has full confidence in Carlos Sainz and admitted that the request to make room for Charles Leclerc in the restart was impossible to fulfill
Ferrari were far from getting their strategy right for Charles Leclerc at Silverstone. After failing to stop the Monegasque after the safety car was brought in during the final stretch of the British GP, the Italian team tried a last-ditch move to save the Monegasque's race, asking Carlos Sainz to open a distance and defend his teammate during the restart.
But Sainz hit his foot and asked his engineers to "stop inventing" on the radio, remembering that he had Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez behind him. After the race, Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto admitted there was no way the Spaniard could comply with the order, and stressed the confidence he has in Formula 1's latest winner.
"We have total confidence, we know he is doing the best he can for the team, for himself too, certainly, but for the team. He proved that a few laps earlier, changing positions without discussion, and even when he made the first stop earlier compared to Charles, we had no discussion, because he has total confidence in the team and the way we act, and that's how he is behaving," Binotto said.
"So, again, [I am] very happy. I know he did his best. There was probably no way he could make room for Charles. I think he did the best he could in pursuit of a Ferrari victory here at Silverstone," praised the Italian manager.
Charles also gave his version of what happened. The driver stressed that he has full confidence in the team, but that sometimes a driver needs to make his own decisions on the track. At that moment, the Spaniard was worried about Hamilton, who was just behind with a great pace with his Mercedes, and assured Ferrari that he would make the maneuver on Leclerc as cleanly as possible.
"I tried to explain to them that I had behind me probably the fastest man on the track today. If I got 10 meters away, I could lose a little bit of the vacuum. And if he passed me, then Charles would also be easy prey. So I decided to get to the lead as fast as possible, because I knew I was going to be in front before turn 6, with the grip I had on the soft tires," Sainz said.
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"I asked the team, 'look, leave it to me I'll handle this as cleanly as possible.' And actually Charles did a great job to almost come second. Sometimes a driver has an intuition and sometimes the team can tell you something that you don't agree with, and you just follow their idea because you really believe in it. But I trust the team a lot, we had a very good race today, and we trust each other in this kind of scenario, as you have seen," said the British GP winner.
With his first career victory, Sainz is now in fourth place in the Drivers' World Championship with 127 points, 54 less than the leader Max Verstappen, from Red Bull. Formula 1 returns next Sunday (10), for the Austrian GP, with complete coverage by GRANDE PRÊMIO.