You had to be very ‘strong’, as Angel Nieto would say, to be able to aspire to win a race in this season’s Formula 1 World Championship, dominated with an almost tyrannical determination by Red Bull, in a possible trigger of the buffalo team red and Max Verstappen, his spearhead. Many aspired to that fishing. From Mercedes, with its ups and downs, to Aston Martin, the indisputable revelation of this course, and even the new version of McLaren. And, of course, so does Ferrari, immersed in that endless process of reinvention that lasts more than a decade and to which no one is able to detect the end point.
The dynamics of Scuderia experienced a change two weeks ago, at Monza, where Carlos Sainz made the typhosi that dyed the stands of the temple of speed red, with a ‘pole’ that on Sunday translated into the first podium of the season for him. Two weeks later, the Spaniard dared to do a somersault with a double pirouette, in a setting as particular as Singapore, home of one of the most exotic grand prix on the calendar. Since Friday, Sainz and Ferrari have bordered on excellence, placing one of the red cars in each of the test sessions. The qualifying resulted in the second consecutive pole position for him, and put him in the best possible position for a race that he dominated from start to finish.
“It is an important moment on a personal level. In Monza we had the option of getting on the podium and here, of achieving victory. “We have taken advantage of both opportunities, and that means that we do not fail under pressure,” summarized the winner, who with this result consolidates his position in fifth place in the statistics, with an advantage of 19 points over Charles Leclerc (sixth), whom he surpassed loosely since they both jumped into the pit. Sainz prevailed in the best possible way, two weeks after being forced to stick out his elbows to defend himself from the attacks of his teammate, labeled as the cornerstone of the red cars project, who are surely rethinking their strategy on the March.
Sainz’s victory, the second in his record, is one of the most striking of those that have been put into play. Not only because it means breaking the streak of Verstappen and Red Bull, but because of how the Ferrari boy cooked it in the most cerebral version of him. The Spaniard’s control was so great that he even allowed himself the luxury of staying, on purpose, within range of Lando Norris’s DRS, so that his colleague would not fall into the jaws of the two Mercedes, turned into wolves. “We had one opportunity all year and we took advantage of it. We had to think, to change tactics when the Mercedes put on the medium tires. But we did everything perfect. This race was less physical and more mental,” added Sainz, who left Singapore for Japan, where next weekend he will perform with the intention of prolonging that sweet inertia in which he travels. “Carlos was very generous, with that DRS. He helped me, but he also helped himself. His best option was to help me, and mine was to help him and not try to overtake him. He had no room to do it,” said Norris, who crossed the finish line second, close to his former teammate at McLaren and his best friend on the grid.
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Source: EL PAIS
