The weekend at Spa-Francorchamps was certainly not an unforgettable one for Ferrari. The Maranello team once again had to pay duty to Red Bull, which despite the penalty on the grid by Max Verstappen was able to hit the fourth double of the season, the third in a race in which starting from pole position it was a car red. But if Charles Leclerc, who also started from the back for a change of power unit that cost him a retreat on the grid, was unable to go beyond the sixth position under the checkered flag – thanks to some mistakes too much by himself and the team – he thought about saving the honor of the Cavallino Carlos Sainz.
Starting from the first box, the Spaniard could do nothing against the superiority of the two RB18s of Verstappen and Perez. The Madrid native however was able to defend the third step of the podium from the dangerous comeback of George Russell’s Mercedes. In fact, the Englishman, especially in the last stint, was able to climb the red # 55 for several seconds, putting Sainz himself and the entire Ferrari garage into apprehension. This time, however, the very wall of Maranello – and in particular the track engineer of the Spaniard, Riccardo Adami – contributed in an important way to avoid losing a position to the advantage of the # 63 of the silver arrows.
Thanks to some too many difficulties in being able to manage hard tires, in fact, at the end of the race Sainz had thought of making a third stop at the box. By radio, however, Adami immediately warned his driver that this would be a serious tactical error. In fact, with only ten laps to the checkered flag, it would have been impossible for Sainz to reassemble Russell once he got back on track, even if with new and better-performing tires. The brief exchange of communications between the two testifies how the warning of the Italian engineer was providential in this specific circumstance.
Lap 33/44
Sainz: “What happens if we stop?”.
Adami: “We finish behind Russell, in fourth position. We will not take it back ”.
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