Ferrari came on the podium as a dark horse in Monaco over the weekend after impressing in Barcelona’s slow third sector, which is often a good indicator of the pace in Monaco.
But the Scuderia exceeded their wildest expectations by setting the pace on the streets of the principality. Charles Leclerc took pole while his late third-quarter crash prevented teammate Carlos Sainz from approaching Leclerc’s benchmark and settling for fourth on the grid.
While Leclerc failed the race with a problem with the driveshaft, an undiscovered holdover from his qualifying accident, Sainz finished second behind Red Bulls Max Verstappen and achieved Ferrari’s first podium of 2021 and his best result since Leclerc’s second place at the 2020 season opener in Austria.
Ferrari’s slow cornering ability could potentially give him several more opportunities to finish on the podium in 2021, particularly in Hungary and Singapore.
Team boss Binotto said, however, that Monaco repetition is “not a matter of course” and would rather concentrate on getting more performance out of the SF1000 on all types of tracks, starting with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix next week.
“I think there will be tracks with slow corners where we might be competitive again, but that can’t be taken for granted,” said Binotto.
“Instead of thinking about which circuit will be competitive again, I think we’re already focusing on Baku, the next, and then we’re focusing on this because there is still room to make better use of the car.”
“I think we showed that we are preparing well for the race weekend. We can at least use the best potential of the car itself. There will be some developments, not much, but they are yet to come and it is important that they work properly.” . “
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Downplaying Ferrari’s potential to snatch more podiums from Mercedes and Red Bull, Sainz pointed out that Monaco’s unique character cannot be replicated on any other circuit.
When asked when he can fight for podiums again, Sainz replied, “I think it’s a pretty straightforward answer: just look at the characteristics of the Monaco circuit and then see which of them comes closest to you If you don’t find many, you won’t find that even the circuits you are probably thinking of are alike.
“That doesn’t mean we’re going to fight for pole or a podium.” [with] Mercedes and Red Bull. I think they still have an advantage for us and it will be very difficult to fight for pole position and a win against us.
“That’s why it’s hard to swallow this weekend because you don’t know when the next chance will come, but we have to be proud of the progress we’ve made and how competitive the car was this weekend.
“It’s not easy to be fast in Monaco and the fact that Charles and I were so fast is also thanks to the team’s good performance and how this weekend worked.”
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