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Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix looked like it could have been a 1–2 finish for Ferrari, but disaster struck.
After Carlos Sainz’s car caught on fire and Charles Leclerc reported throttle issues, team boss Mattia Binotto admitted he was “too nervous” to watch the final laps, which ended with Leclerc winning.
“I have to admit I was very nervous,” Binotto said. “Disappointed as well because of what happened to Carlos, but I was so nervous that I stopped watching the race in the last three laps.”
The Spaniard started closing in on Max Verstappen to make a pass on lap 57, when smoke emerged from his car. Sainz pulled off into the run-off area at Turn 4, and all of a sudden his car went up in flames with him still in the vehicle.
“I saw in my mirrors that the car was catching [on] fire, but at the same time, I was pressing the brake,” Sainz said in the post-race press conference. “And as soon as I tried to jump out, I saw the car going backward, and I didn’t want to leave the car out of control rolling backwards while jumping out.
“I was calling the marshals to come and help me to put something on the tires to stop the car [from] rolling down, but I think the whole process was a bit slow. At some point, there was so much fire that I had to really get a move on and jump out.”
Then, Leclerc started reporting throttle problems as the accelerator became stuck open on corners. This wasn’t the first time reliability concerns threatened or ruined a race for Ferrari, particularly those with Leclerc in the lead.
Those final laps even stressed out the Monegasque.
“Oh, not only a little bit stressful, very stressful,” Leclerc said Sunday. “The throttle was really inconsistent, and in the middle of the corner, it would get stuck to whatever percentage.
“So, in Turn 3 it was very, very tricky because that’s where you don’t want any more speed in mid-corner, so yeah. It was quite tricky to manage not so much in the high speed but mostly in the slow speed but at the end we managed to get the car to the end, which is great.”
Binotto said after the race that “initial feedback is that it was more of a mechanical one” concerning Leclerc’s car, but they “need to confirm.” As far as Sainz’s engine, it could have been a repeat of what happened to Leclerc in Baku.
“Is it the same we had already in Baku with Charles? Very likely,” Binotto said Sunday. “It's certainly a concern, but the people back at Maranello are working very hard try to fix things. Obviously, looking at what happened to Carlos, it has not been solved yet.
“But we have new elements and I know how strong they are working and how good they are. I can count on them that it will be addressed very soon, and hopefully as soon as possible.”
