In the round-up: Carlos Sainz Jnr dismisses the idea Ferrari tried to use strategy to get his team mate ahead of him.
In brief
No favouritism at Ferrari – Sainz
Sainz passed the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc early on, only for his team mate to pit soon afterwards. As Sainz delayed his pit stop, Leclerc jumped back in front of him. Sainz passed him again and went on to finish ahead.
But Sainz, who will leave the team at the end of the year, does not believe there was any favouritism in the team’s strategy. “I don’t think it was an intended ‘undercut’,” he said.
“I think Charles degraded the tyres probably a bit earlier than me, and they decided to keep me out for three or four laps. Honestly, those three or four laps were very strong. I think I managed to go down to 37s, low 37s again. So it was worth it.
“Then luckily it didn’t compromise my race because I could pass Charles fairly quickly and go and attack George [Russell], which I passed also quite quickly. So I don’t think I lost too much race time on that situation.”
Zhou pleased with ‘best of the rest’
Sauber’s Zhou Guanyu was pleased with the drive which lifted him to 11th place in yesterday’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
“We had a clean race with a good start where I was able to make up some positions,” he said, “but it was quite challenging to keep the Aston Martins behind without compromising our tyres. Luckily, I managed to keep Kevin [Magnussen] and the rest of the field behind me.
“We made progress over the weekend, and the team worked hard to find the optimal set-up. Unfortunately, in a race with no attrition, we couldn’t get points without anything happening to the cars ahead of us.”
Ferrari imply BoP behind poor Qatar showing
Ferrari lacked pace in the opening round of the World Endurance Championship yesterday. While teams are forbidden from discussing the series’ Balance of Performance rules, Ferrari indicated the enforced changes to their car’s weight and power output were behind their poor weekend.
“We saw our pre-race fears confirmed, namely, the power-to-weight ratio’s high impact on competitiveness that left us in an inferior position and precluded any chance of contending for the podium,” said Ferrari sports car chief Antonio Coletta.
“Looking at the positives, we drove all three cars to the finish again, amassing further data and kilometres that will be useful starting at Imola.”
Cordeel gets grid penalty
Hitech driver Amaury Cordeel will carry a five-place grid penalty into next week’s round in Jeddah as a punishment for his collision with Oliver Bearman yesterday. Cordeel failed to realise Bearman was heading for the pits when he tangled with the Prema driver, and subsequently retired from the race.
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Links
Motor racing links of interest:
Verstappen’s dad Jos calls for Horner’s head (Daily Mail)
‘There is tension here while he remains in position. The team is in danger of being torn apart. It can’t go on the way it is. It will explode. He is playing the victim, when he is the one causing the problems.’
Audi said to plan full takeover of Sauber to run own F1 team (Automotive News Europe)
‘Audi is planning to buy out Switzerland’s Sauber Group’s F1 team, ahead of its plans to join the racing circuit in 2026, according to people familiar with the matter.’
‘Knowing what they know now, Sartini said, executives at The Strat would support F1 again ‘but going forward, we want to work with them to be more involved in the activities around that week or 10 days. It’s not just a weekend.’
Komatsu and a road less traveled to the top of a Formula One team (Japan Times)
‘In a way I’m not too hung up on my nationality. Like, of course, I’m Japanese. You know, I was born in Japan, I was raised in Japan through 18 years of age, but I wanted to do something international.’
Bad blood over Singapore Taylor Swift Eras tour subsidies (BBC)
‘A local bank, Maybank, has suggested that consumer spending may top S$350m – but that’s based on the very optimistic prediction of 70% of attendees being from out of town. Even Singapore’s Formula One Grand Prix only saw 49% of spectators from overseas in 2022, with a record 300,000 crowd.’
How teams talks to drivers on track (Mercedes via YouTube)
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Social media
Notable posts from X (formerly Twitter), TikTok and more:
On the first day of its new season Formula 1 is making the front pages in the UK – but not for the reasons it wants.#F1 #BahrainGP #RaceFans pic.twitter.com/1OABxr8wOe
— RaceFans (@racefansdotnet) March 2, 2024
I usually can watch an entire f1 race but today I made it 5 laps and completely loss interest. Really hope they can figure it out and make it exciting again.
— Sage Karam (@SageKaram) March 2, 2024
Yeah why wouldn’t you want 2 extra cars on the grid
— Scott McLaughlin (@smclaughlin93) March 2, 2024
Zane Maloney already won more #F2 races this year than the 2023 champion did in their title-winning campaign
— Ida (@wood_ida_) March 2, 2024
Well I thought I’d set my expectations low enough but evidently not.#F1 #BahrainGP #RaceFans
— Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) March 2, 2024
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Happy birthday!
Happy birthday to Seaney_T!