After some free practice sessions in which Charles Leclerc showed that he had adapted more quickly to the so-called SF-24 Evo, in qualifying the Monegasque also managed to get a little more rhythm out of it and Carlos Sainz could not go beyond fifth position, although he would finally come out fourth thanks to a penalty to Oscar Piastri.
However, in the race, the Spaniard was also a small step behind his teammate and, furthermore, due to a somewhat strange strategy, he lost the position he had gained with Piastri and finished the Imola race in fifth place. , far from the dreamed podium at Ferrari’s home.
As soon as he got out of the car, the Ferrari driver revealed that After Saturday’s day they discovered a series of problems in their car that influenced their performance in the race.
“Honestly, it has been a very difficult weekend for me. Yesterday after qualifying we saw a couple of problems with the car that surely affected us today and it was not the home race in front of the tifosi that I would have liked to have had. “.
“We have suffered the whole race with the balance and with the aerodynamics, with the engine we have also had some problems, so it was always going to be a difficult race, but hey, the important thing is to find the problems, solve them and have everything new for the future. to Monaco,” he added.
Regarding strategy, Sanz explained that Ferrari’s objective was to extend their stoppage as much as possible, but that When their rivals entered the pits they were forced to stop to defend themselves and at that moment they were already on the wrong foot..
“First of all, when there is a lack of rhythm, the strategy is never going to be easy. We have tried to lengthen [la parada] to see if we could wait for a Safety Car, but in the end we couldn’t because Russell also stopped and made us undercut and losing position with Piastri and Russell would have been too much, we had to stop to protect ourselves and we couldn’t extend our time. brown what we would have liked,” he concluded.
Gallery: the best images of the F1 race at Imola 2024
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