F1 team boss believes “Charles Leclerc is two tenths faster than Carlos Sainz”

08/16/2022 03:11 PM

Among Ferrari fans, the most frequent criticism of the Maranello team principal is that he did not immediately choose a first and a second driver between Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at the start of the 2022 Formula 1 championship. The impression is that the overwhelming majority of Ferrari fans would have liked the Monegasque to be given the number one driver since the first race in Bahrain, with the Smooth Operator in the role of second driver, in order to lose the least amount of points possible to Red Bull.

If he had been Ferrari’s team principal, Franz Tost, the Austrian former racing driver and current boss of Scuderia AlphaTauri, probably wouldn’t have had any doubts. While appreciating Carlos Sainz, and despite having had the Spaniard on his team from 2015 to 2017, he believes that Charles Leclerc is on another level: “Carlos is talented and works hard. He is very good and can match Charles, as long as everything goes well for him. But in terms of pure speed, Charles Leclerc is two tenths faster: this is clear and evident.” – Franz Tost said, as reported by NextGen-Auto.

The Austrian compared the Charles Leclerc – Carlos Sainz situation to another one that he is experiencing first hand, such as that between Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda, the current AlphaTauri drivers: “The Frenchman is also very talented, like Carlos. He thinks carefully about everything and is very focused. With the right car, he can fight for the top. Yuki has crazy pure speed, but he needs to clear his mind. He has to drive more carefully, not in an emotional way. If he can make this step mentally, he can become a great driver. But unlike Pierre, now it depends on him.”

Finally, Franz Tost expressed his opinion on Daniel Ricciardo, another former driver of his. The Australian could even be excluded from the 2023 grid due to his poor performance for McLaren in the last two seasons: “I remember Daniel as a fast driver. I am a bit surprised at what is happening to him because he technically understands a Formula 1 car from A to Z and knows how to best adapt it to his driving style.” – the Scuderia AlphaTauri boss concluded.

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