Ferrari believe Red Bull indirectly caused the pit stop blunder that led to Carlos Sainz losing track position to both Mercedes drivers and Sergio Perez in the early stages of the Dutch Grand Prix. Sainz was struggling early in the race on Soft tyres, which prompted the team to pit him cover off any threat of time lost out on track. But when he arrived in his pit box the team were not ready, with him having to wait 12.7 seconds while the team scrambled to change his tyres. Speaking in their post-race debrief strategy video, Ferrari Chief Strategist Inaki Rueda explained how the team reacting to an undercut threat Red Bull indirectly caused the error that led to the disaster pitstop for Sainz. "The first pit stops took place relatively early. Drivers started coming in from lap ten. That gave us the chance to make a pit stop and end up in clean air," said Rueda. "With Carlos we were under fire, because the two Mercedes drivers and Sergio Perez were able to undercut us. At that point in the race, that would have meant we would have lost the spot.
Pit stop call came "later than usual"
Rueda admitted that the call for Sainz to pit came "later than usual" with the team normally giving themselves a 23 to 24-second window to get ready before a scheduled stop is made. In this case, the pit crew only had 17 seconds to react with the tight pit lane at Zandvoort making it more difficult for the team to react quickly. "The people changing the tires (on the left side of the car in this case) have to walk across the pit stop," explained Rueda. "That's why you saw that all three other tires were already changed before the left rear was on the car." "The people who operate the wheelguns managed to get in place in time, as did the people removing the tires and the people who put a new tire on the car. "But because Carlos came in a little earlier than usual, whoever had to put the left rear tire on the car just didn't get into place in time." Team Principal Mattia Binotto admitted after the race that these errors "shouldn't happen" and was confident they could solve these problems, focusing his concerns more on their lack of pace in the races.
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