After a good start to the World Championship and a shake that lasted longer than desired, Ferrari began a recovery last Sunday, at Silverstone, the scene of Carlos Sainz's first Formula 1 win.
A week later it is confirmed that there is no human way for peace to settle in the garage of the Maranello brand, which this time, at the Red Bull Ring, had a golden opportunity to start putting fear into the body of the energetic team, the thing was ready to end the worst of dramas.
Three quarters of the Austrian Grand Prix completed, Charles Leclerc and Sainz had the second one-two for the
Scuderia
practically in the bag, when the engine of the car from Madrid blew up.
It is never a good time for the engine to break, but things are even more cruel when misfortune prevents you from getting on a podium that seemed like a piece of cake.
The superiority of Ferrari in Spielberg was unquestionable, surely increased by the increase in the degradation that the asphalt presented after last night's downpour.
This conditioned the performance of the red buffalo single-seater and revitalized that of
Il Cavallino Rampante
, who played with the wind in his favor at all times and with the advantage that this entailed at a strategic level.
Despite starting from
pole
, the force that always accompanies Verstappen could not prevent Leclerc from overtaking him on the track on two occasions (laps 12 and 33), the Dutchman absolutely disoriented as shown by the inconsistency of his car, when that the grip came and went.
The wrecking of the compounds forced
Mad Max
to stop twice, while Ferrari could have fulfilled only one, even though it ended up going to three, due to different conditions.
🗣️ @Carlossainz55 explains what happened during the fire in his Ferrari
"I had to throw myself out of the car"#AustriaDAZNF1 🇦🇹 pic.twitter.com/g9BwEW3Hlc
– DAZN Spain (@DAZN_ES) July 10, 2022
With Leclerc's lead secured, Ferrari was rubbing its hands at the speed of Sainz, who at one point ran over Verstappen with 15 laps to the checkered flag.
Just when the man from Madrid was about to tear off the stickers of the current champion to certify what would have been the second double for the red cars, the power unit of his prototype began to burn.
The boy was lucky to be able to get out of a very compromising situation unscathed, which caused a huge hustle and bustle among the commissioners, who took longer than necessary to control the scene.
This abandonment, Sainz's fourth so far this year, begins to pose a very complicated scenario for his aspirations to fight for the World Cup, given that the victory of his teammate allows him to close the gap with the leader of the table general.
“He had quite a bit of rhythm, but then what happened happened.
It was a shame and I can't say much more, because there are a lot of points that we lost, and another lost opportunity, especially after the streak we had started”, agreed Sainz, logically dejected.
This is the third victory of the season for Leclerc, whose blood ran cold in the final stages of the test, due to a problem with the accelerator of his F1-75 – when he lifted his foot, the pedal did not return to its position initial, a circumstance that prevented him from engaging the gears well and made him go long in some braking.
“I got really scared!” the winner yelled, over the radio, right at the end.
The Monegasque hasn't prevailed since April (Australia) and is back in second place in the standings, 38 points behind the leader.
Of the five that appear on his service record, this is the first that he has not certified after starting from the best position on the grid – he started second.
Verstappen finished second and saved the furniture brilliantly while Lewis Hamilton scratched a podium again,
the third in a row for the Briton, whose Mercedes is recomposing itself with the progress of the calendar, waiting to know how far it will go.
Fernando Alonso, who started last, managed to cross the finish line in tenth from a counter strategy
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