Binotto: "Didn't expect graining to come so early"

At Ferrari they had taken into account that the tires could take a beating this weekend at Imola, but that Charles Leclerc's tires would fail after only twenty laps in the sprint race, which they had not expected. This is what Mattia Binotto says to Auto, Motor und Sport.

Graining started early at Ferrari

Speaking to the German medium, the team boss of the Maranello-based racing team stated,"We expected the graining, but not this early." Max Verstappen took advantage of this by passing Leclerc on the penultimate lap. The RB18 is better on tires this weekend. Helmut Marko jokes, "It would have happened to us too, but only on lap 22."

Like Leclerc, Sainz also drove on softs, but he suffered a lot less from graining. According to Ferrari, this was mainly due to the fact that the Madrid native drove a very different race than his teammate. "The balance of our car was not perfect today. If you only practice in the rain to prepare for a dry race, you can sometimes make a mistake," Binotto stated.

Sainz managed to move up from P10 to fourth place. From the second row of the grid, he can hope for a podium and put the pressure on Sergio Perez. The Mexican driver, in turn, will hope to attack Charles Leclerc, giving Max Verstappen more breathing space.