Carlos Sainz’s refusal to stop for intermediates in Monaco was a “great strategy” made by the Spaniard himself with Jolyon Palmer saying had he listened to Ferrari it would have “butchered” his race.
Ferrari had the 1-2 early in a wet Monaco Grand Prix, Charles Leclerc leading the race ahead of Sainz and the chasing Red Bull drivers.
Red Bull were the first to blink, pitting Sergio Perez for intermediates, with Ferrari then calling Sainz to cover that move. He refused to, while two laps after Perez’s stop Leclerc did pit from the lead only to pit again three laps later for slicks.
That cost him dearly, the Monégasque driver falling to fourth while Sainz with just one slick tyre stop could have taken the lead were it not for traffic on his out-lap.
🇲🇨 P2. We did the right call but a lapped car in my out-lap on slicks cost me too much time and we lost the lead. Tough one to digest because the win was there for the taking but I gave it all and we’ll comeback stronger as a team!
–#Carlossainz pic.twitter.com/yDqmljoBLV
— Carlos Sainz (@Carlossainz55) May 29, 2022
Palmer says he deserved praise for his inspired strategy call.
“They don’t call the first pit stop that was a brave one from Red Bull,” he told the Chequered Flag podcast. “Okay, that made senses and it was good strategy from Red Bull.
“Then Sainz from the cockpit, this is the interesting thing to me, we really hear much chatter from Leclerc and in his engineer but I really rated Sainz, I thought it was brilliant.
“We heard the chatter from Sainz’s car in second and Ferrari wanted to call them in and they were pretty persistent as well, ‘come in for inters, come in inters, and he was like ‘no guys’.
“And he flat out from second place didn’t pit and he said ‘no let’s wait for slicks’.
“He could obviously feel the car and thought ‘no, we got track position in Monaco. We’re gonna wait for slicks’.
“He was robust in…
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