Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz battled with each other allowing Max Verstappen to cruise to victory in Saturday’s Austrian Grand Prix Sprint Race.
On the opening lap, Sainz had a hard look at Leclerc going down the hill into that tricky Turn 4 then, at the same corner, the Spaniard launched a lunge on lap seven that was never going to happen, triggering the question: Is civil war set to erupt between Ferrari drivers? Yes.
Leclerc was not happy and said afterwards: “Tomorrow is going to be a long race and tyre management will be quite a bit more important compared to today so probably tomorrow, we cannot afford to do what we did today, no.”
Charles and Carlos battling hard for P2 ⚔️#AustrianGP #F1Sprint pic.twitter.com/KQZgx4J8KF
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 9, 2022
Clearly not on the same page as his teammate, Sainz saw no wrong: “I had a good start, then a couple of fights there at the beginning, first with Max into Turn 3 then with Charles into Turn 3 again a bit later in the race – which was good, it was good fun like it should be, good racing.
“But then I probably overheated a bit the tyres running behind Charles. I had to back off to recover them and finish the race,” added the Spaniard, admitting he trashed his tyres fighting his teammate (!!!) apparently oblivious to what might have been.
With proper management and teamwork, that might’ve been was beating Red Bull and Verstappen or at least make life difficult for them as the reigning F1 World Champ continues to bludgeon the Reds with his maximum points hauls of late.
Step on stage Mr Mattia Binotto… What is going on at Maranello?
So Binotto went off to Monaco to pacify his aggrieved driver this past week, according to reports that surfaced in various increasingly outraged Italian media.
And a fat lot of good that did, in fact, think of the damage done to the Sainz side of the garage!
Carlos would’ve been seething at seeing the Monaco video of his boss and his teammate (archrival?) after their tete-a-tete or whatever, in the aftermath of the Silverstone debacle.
Poor management of the highest order. A proper manager would summon both his drivers, after the Silverstone shitshow, to Maranello for a 6am shift, starting with two hours of BootCamp as punishment and to show them who is the real capo at Ferrari.
Then, take his two Charlies to the office, make them stand at attention and say this to the pair:
Carlos, Charles is faster than You. Charles, Carlos is smarter than You.
How do we beat Max? Like this:
Charles, you chase Max hard, attack, try force some errors, make him work, make the Red Bull work, make the Honda engine work. Make him defend on the kerbs, break shit. Race him smart and hard. They can be fragile those RB18s.
Carlos, you stay within prancing distance, stalk, save tyres, smooth operator style. Like in the karting days, with these cars, you can hunt him down. Together. Full gas. Force Verstappen’s hand, make him sweat.
Then we see where we stand, to win this championship we need to beat Max together. One-two for Ferrari. This is not negotiable. You two are experienced, grown men, so establish your terms of engagement and let us know.
This is the greatest team in the history of the sport, you have an obligation to Ferrari first and then yourself. Now never fight on my watch or we will replace you with Giovinazzi and Schumacher.
Of course, Mattia did not say and will never say anything of the above, because he is an engineer who can lead propeller heads to the greatest of heights as he did with this marvellous car they have for 2022.
All at Maranello delivered a magnificent race car, a F1 title-winning one, in the Ferrari F-175
But no matter how good the F-175 is, it will not win the F1 title or Grand Prix races it deserves to win in the hands of two feuding drivers, one that does not want to lose at all costs and the other who wants to win at all costs, and a fumbling, inexperienced race driver manager.
It is a dilemma that began for the Scuderia the day Sainz inked his name to the Ferrari contract. That Binotto and his leadership believed the Spaniard was coming to the great team to play second fiddle to Leclerc was naive to the point of incredulous, if not plain stupid. We have said this before.
Sainz’s signature immediately had the potential of another Senna-Prost feud.
Furthermore, while the cars were Sloppy Donkeys it was okay, LEC and SAI were the best of pals and could do all those stupid PR stunts they do, on bouncy balls, party tricks, silly guessing games etc. It’s embarrassing and demeaning, no matter how many likes are clicked. And therein lies one of several roots to the problem.
Ferrari are a racing team, not a Twitter feed
When a team are in the midfield, as Ferrari were last year (and frankly for far too long before this season) they can be forgiven for using social media as a decoy to the lack of on-track success.
But now, with the Horses Prancing and winning again, it’s time to cut the crap, end the made-for social media BS the poor guys have to endure and do what they are paid handsomely to do, namely to Race Red cars very fast, all the time. Tell the sponsors that appearances are cancelled.
“Focus. Let’s win this thing or at least give it a good shot at doing so,” should be the warcry going forward.
The inept show has to stop as Max and Red Bull are getting a free pass to a championship that had Ferrari written on it until they shot themselves in the foot… and do so repeatedly.
And of course, in the wake of today’s Austrian Grand Prix Sprint Race, where both had close calls with the sand, it is clear that Mattia-Charles talk did no good. And, notably, one driver thinks it’s untenable (Charles) and the other (Carlos) relished the battle he had with his teammate!
More so than any other team pairing on the grid at the moment, the one that is set to go toxic, explode, civil war or whatever you call it when teammates collide.
Carlos vs Charles is explosive with Binotto flinging fuel around with too many dubious decisions
Decisions that do Ferrari no favours and are a disservice to all those at Maranello who with sweat, blood and tears build those two cars for two spoilt brats to put their own egos and ambitions ahead of all those behind the greatest team in our sport.
Talk about no communication. Mattia needs to put out the fire tonight because it does not take a Nostradamus to work out that all hell could break loose between the pair at Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday and/or France and/or Hungary. Whenever.
But it will happen sooner or later unless Binotto cracks the whip and gets his drivers in order. ASAP. Or else Tifosi should brace themselves for civil war and bye-bye 2022 F1 titles, 2023, 2024 and so on. until one of the Charlies goes.
In closing final words to Mattia Binotto: “By maximising the points for the team, we are also doing the same for the drivers’ chances by taking points away from their opponents. The fastest car on the track is the one that gets priority.”
So why did Sainz attack?
“If one of the drivers has better chances later in the championship, then we will certainly try to give him full priority, but at the moment that is not the situation.”
Seriously? Leclerc was 24 points ahead of Sainz before the Silverstone fiasco. And is still 12 points ahead of Sainz, in a season that will now be decided by the finest of margins it is clear who to push for the title tilt.
“When there are team orders everyone blames us that there should be a free fight and when you have a free fight there should be team orders. So whatever you do is always wrong.”
Does he even listen to the social media keyboard warriors whose highly uneducated noise is largely responsible for the blame game he talks of?
This pretty much sums up all that is wrong with Binotto’s management style… The prosecution rests. Forza Ferrari!