“Come on Fred, come on Ricky!” Those were the words of Carlos Sainz on the radio as soon as he saw the checkered flag of the Singapore GP. They were for his engineer and his bosswho yesterday put the best strategy and all the support in his hands and Carlos did not disappoint: not one mistake, not one hesitation.
And to crown the race, a brilliant improvisation with the DRS. The pilot’s strategy was an honorable one. The Mercedes were launched after changing tires and were able to overtake Leclerc without problems. Before reaching Carlos it was time to overtake Norris and the Briton defended himself like a lion against his compatriots thanks to the genius invented by his former teammate. “What about the DRS? Carlos. All of him. He has been brilliant. He said: ‘I want the ‘gap’ with Lando,” It has all been cold blood. “Few drivers would have done it,” said Gen, as surprised as the rest of the team.
“We hadn’t talked about it, but He understood very quickly that his best defense was to protect Norris, It was a great management of his. From the first to the last lap he has had total control over the race,” Vasseur said.
“LET YOUR INSTINCT OUT”
He and Lando know and understand each other perfectly and that’s also why it turned out well. “I would never have overtaken Sainz and that play with the DRS has been essential so that the Mercedes did not pass me,” Lando acknowledged. “He is in a great moment for several races,” he added after sharing the podium for the second time with his friend after Monaco 2021.
“Some days you need to trust your instincts, trust your feelings. I have trusted in that these last two weekends and it is working well,” acknowledges the man from Madrid, who is different since he returned from the summer break. Gen defined him as Carlos 2.0.
“This is a kind of strategy that you always keep in your head on tracks like Singapore, where it can be useful at some point. Then it is more complicated to get it out and make it work for you,” added Carlos, who thanked the team for the tremendous effort he has made to turn it around at the beginning of the year.
“I was calm even though I was under pressure, but I was in control at all times,” he said in an imitation of that Alonso, who in 2010 told his team on the radio “don’t worry, Vettel won’t pass me by”, when yours eat the muons.
“I sat down with my engineers over the summer break and said, ‘What can we do?’ We clearly have a lot of rhythm, but we never manage to complete everything together“Let’s see how we improve that and start to have consistent performances in the second half, because the potential is clearly there.” Well said and done, what they changed has worked.
