Ferrari struggled in Zandvoort, especially with Charles Leclerc, forced to retire after 43 laps of agony. The accident with Piastri on the first lap caused damage that caused the Monegasque to lose 60 load points. But Charles' feeling hasn't been good all weekend and refers to the terrible balance of the car. On the other side of the box there Ferrari attempted to attack the podium with Carlos Sainz who said he was satisfied with the afternoon Netherlands, considering that we have put both McLaren and Mercedes, the main rivals, behind us. Alonso's performance was difficult to replicate for the Maranello team which aims to relaunch itself at home, in Monza, next weekend.
Sainz: "happy to have fought for the podium"
The excellent performance of the first three, namely Verstappen, Alonso and Gasly, tarnished the result obtained by Sainz a bit, who managed to finish in fifth position, keeping Lewis Hamilton behind in the final stages of the race. At the restart from the red flag the Spaniard was unable to reduce the gap to get in front of Perez, who was penalized, but he made the difference on several occasions by managing the race as best as possible and fighting for the podium until the end.
It was probably impossible to do more than that, and, analyzing a race as complex and unpredictable as the one in Zandvoort, Sainz declared:
“I'm happy to have fought for the podium, in these conditions it wasn't within our reach and fifth place is therefore an excellent result. In the last stint we had to use an intermediate tire that was already used yesterday – Sainz said -it was excellent, in these conditions, to have finished ahead of Hamilton. A result I'm satisfied with, also because the podium in terms of pace was really far away. I'm happy to have fought with cars that, on paper, were ahead of us in terms of performance. Monza? It's a different circuit, where I have better sensations than today's race."
The team will have little time to figure out what went one way and what didn't go the other. Monza is around the corner. It's the last truly important event in which we can try to straighten out the season.
Source statements: Journal of Sport
