In the round-up: Red Bull team principal Christian Horner says Ferrari’s reliability concerns are of no comfort to his team as they compete for this year’s world championship titles.
In brief
Ferrari’s reliability woes of no comfort to Red Bull in title fight
Carlos Sainz Jnr suffered the latest in a series of reliability failures for Ferrari in last week’s Austrian Grand Prix.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen currently leads the drivers’ championship by 38 points over Sainz’s team mate Charles Leclerc. Ferrari have suffered four mechanical retirements in the last six rounds.
But asked if Ferrari’s recent reliability concerns gave Red Bull cause for optimism in their championship, Horner said “not really.”
“We’re not too focussed on them and that,” Horner continued. “We can’t control or contribute to that in any way. I think that we’ve got to focus on ourselves and on just getting the best out of our own package.
Horner says Red Bull are conscious that Ferrari could have secured a one-two victory last weekend in Austria had Sainz not suffered a power unit failure. “They had a very strong car – they could have could have well finished first and second. Up until about lap 12, the weekend had gone pretty well in terms of the pole position and the sprint victory. But, unfortunately, that tyre deg just hit us pretty hard.”
New York crash ‘one of my strongest’ – Di Grassi
Lucas di Grassi labelled the race ending crash he was involved in at the end of the first New York EPrix as one of the biggest he had experienced in his motorsport career.
Di Grassi was running in second behind Nick Cassidy when rain began to fall with around ten minutes remaining in the race. Sudden high levels of standing water along the back straight caused Cassidy, Di Grassi and Stoffel Vandoorne to aquaplane off the track and into the turn six barriers, with Di Grassi’s Venturi hitting Cassidy’s Envision before both were struck by the Mercedes.
“The crash today was the strongest crash of my Formula E career,” said Di Grassi. “One of the strongest crashes I had in motorsport.
“It was well over 15G, I would say. I’m fully bruised – my neck, my hands, my legs – but I’m okay. It just shows that when you’re aquaplaning, there’s nothing really you can do. I’m happy that they put [out] the red flag and they reversed the result of the race, because it was the fairest thing to do. I’m happy with the points, but unhappy that the car is…
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