Sky Sports F1 expert Naomi Schiff insists Ferrari drivers 'played into their own demise' by scrapping in early stages of Sprint; Ferrari drivers insist they will establish different rules of engagement for Sunday's race, live on Sky Sports from 12.30pm
Saturday 9 July 2022 18:18, UK
Max Verstappen cruised to victory over the Ferraris in Saturday's Sprint race in Austria, but did Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz contribute to their own downfall by racing each other in the early stages?
The Red Bull driver finished the 23-lap race more than 1.6seconds ahead of Leclerc, who admitted he lost time after being overtaken by Sainz on the first lap before quickly fighting back to reclaim the place.
The Ferrari scrap allowed Verstappen to move out of DRS range before managing his soft tyres to the end of the race to claim eight world championship points and a starting spot at the front of the grid for Sunday's race.
"We lost a little bit of time in the battle with Carlos, but it was fun," Leclerc told Sky Sports F1.
"Whether or not it would have been possible to do anything more without the battle, I don't think so anyway.
"It's never ideal to have a battle where we've lost quite a bit of time, but it's the way it is for now."
Sainz eventually finished third, a further four seconds behind Leclerc and doesn't think the scrap impacted their chances of catching Verstappen.
"I think today there was very little to gain or to lose by fighting," he said.
"We're talking about one point more, or one point less, because there's not many points in the Sprint. And also Max looked very in control the whole race up front, so it's not like we lost out."
However, Sky Sports F1 expert Naomi Schiff disagreed, suggesting Sainz, who secured his maiden Grand Prix win at Silverstone last weekend, was eager to prove himself - and that cost them a chance of challenging for the win.
"I think that's what played into their demise today," she said
"Sainz is 11 points behind his team-mate in the championship now and I think that was a subliminal message from his side to say 'I'm still in this battle, I want to race my team-mate and show I'm still a part of this championship'.
"You can't really argue, 11 points is nothing at this stage. They could have taken the battle closer to Max and they probably could have tried to see how they could use that in their favour tomorrow.
"I guess Carlos has got to, in this round when he's this close to his team-mate, really prove exactly the battle he can take to him."
Leclerc, who said on team radio "we can get them" in Sunday's race, made ground on Verstappen towards the end of the Sprint and is clearly confident of challenging the world champion.
But he admitted the two Ferrari drivers will need to avoid racing each other, with team principal Mattia Binotto establishing their rules of engagement.
"Tomorrow is going to be a long race, and tyre management will be quite a bit more important compared to today. So probably tomorrow we cannot afford to do what we did today," Leclerc said.
"Was this was enough to get the win? I don't think so, because Max was also managing the tyres once he had the gap.
"I don't know for the rules of engagement. Obviously we are not the ones to decide, it will be more Mattia."
Verstappen himself is expecting a tight battle on Sunday when Ferrari will be able to employ different strategies, but he is pleased with his weekend so far.
"It was a decent race. We had a good start and after that we were very closely matched," he said.
"In the first few laps [the Ferraris] were also fighting a little bit, so I had a bit of a gap. After that I think we were quite similar in pace.
"I think tomorrow it's going to be a quite interesting battle again. The race is going to be a lot longer and tricky on tyres.
"The car is good. There's a few things to fine tune but overall we have been really competitive again this weekend."
Sunday
7.30am: F3 Feature Race
9am: F2 Feature Race
12.30am: Grand Prix Sunday: Austrian GP Build-up
2pm: THE AUSTRIAN GRAND PRIX
4pm: Chequered Flag: Austrian GP Reaction
5pm: Ted's Notebook
F1 2022 hits the halfway point with the Austrian GP from the high-speed Red Bull Ring on Sunday. All the action is live on Sky Sports F1, with race build-up from 12.30pm and lights out at 2pm.
