“Carlos Sainz’s engine failure in Austrian Grand Prix could make Ferrari’s life easier”

Carlos Sainz’s engine failure in Austria could mean a difficult decision becomes easier to make for Ferrari in the second half of the season.

Following Sainz’s retirement from the Austrian Grand Prix from third position, missing out on what had looked like an easy second place as he quickly hunted down Max Verstappen, a number of pundits believe the retirement could be the line in the sand for Sainz’s hopes of a title bid.

The Spaniard had been only 11 points behind his team-mate Charles Leclerc heading to Austria but following his engine failure, is now 36 points adrift of Leclerc and 74 behind championship leader Verstappen.

With the season reaching its halfway point in Austria, the failure could lead to Ferrari starting to impose team orders to maximise Leclerc’s results going forward having followed a ‘let them race’ policy in the first half of the season.

Speaking on the BBC Chequered Flag podcast, W Series champion Jamie Chadwick joined BBC journalist Andrew Benson and host Jack Nicholls, where all three debated the situation.

“One of the most striking things for me after Sainz’s retirement was Mattia Binotto on the pit wall – the camera showed him with his head in his hands,” Nicholls said of the Ferrari team boss’ reaction to the failure.

“He’s got black curly hair and his fingernails were scraping through it in that frustrated manner. And when he lifted his head up again, the colour was indistinguishable from his T-shirt, like it was really a pained situation for Binotto.

“Because not only has this happened and cost them second place and a 1-2, this will hurt Sainz further down the road. Leclerc has already had to take an engine penalty, surely this will affect Sainz on that front too.”

With Leclerc having served an engine penalty in Canada as Ferrari have struggled for reliability on the power unit front so far in 2022, Benson said further pain probably looms for Sainz in the not-too-distant future.

“Sainz has already used his allocated three engines this season,” he said.

“So we are now at the halfway point of the season and he’s certainly got one engine penalty looming pretty soon. It looks like both he and Leclerc will have another engine penalty beyond that, given their engine usage at the moment. I’ve not heard Ferrari have a fix for this problem yet – they are managing their engines.

“So I think Sainz could even have an engine penalty at the next race in France. That’s a real blow for his…