Ferrari hail ‘CarLando’ partnership as Lando Norris keeps Mercedes at bay while Carlos Sainz cruises to win at Singapore GP
Ferrari gave McLaren’s Lando Norris a cheeky nod as the former teammate finish as the Top 2 drivers this weekend.
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Ferrari and Lando Norris (via Imago)
Carlos Sainz and Lando Norris, former teammates at McLaren, seem to have helped each other finish as First and Second in a thrilling Singapore GP. The duo worked together to defend against the chasing Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell.
Mercedes pitted both cars on Lap 45 of 62 under the virtual safety car as they compromised track position for the late race pace. That left Russell and Hamilton with blistering pace in the closing laps. But they had to overtake the top 3 drivers – Sainz, Norris, and Leclerc to secure a win. As Russell and Hamilton hunted the pack down, it looked at a point that the pair’s medium set of tires were going to triumph over the used hards of Sainz and Norris.
Carlos made a brilliant call of just slowing down enough to allow Lando to get in his DRS range, giving him speed to defend against Russell and Hamilton. As Lando got his elbows out and defended hard against the pair, Carlos managed to win the Grand Prix for Ferrari – on used Hard tires. Lando was the runner-up and the famous bromance was another glorious chapter penned down.
Do not miss: Lando Norris jokes about Max Verstappen’s ‘worst-ever car’ at the Singapore GP
Sainz ‘it’s on purpose’ radio call about giving Lando DRS was peak F1
The closing laps of the Singapore GP made it seem as if it was a 4-way battle for the win. Carlos Sainz, having pitted only once, was wrestling to get the hard tires across the chequered flag. That’s when the Ferrari driver demanded his race engineer to notify him of the gap to Lando on every lap.
It seemed as if Carlos was unaware of the charging Mercedes duo and was only concerned with gapping Norris’s McLaren. Sainz was updated alarmingly by Ferrari mid-lap to let him know that the gap to Lando had reduced to 0.8 seconds. Carlos smugly replied, “Yeah, It’s on purpose”.
This radio call confirmed that Carlos was never bothered about gapping Lando when he asked for his updates. Carlos Sainz was planning to bring Lando in his DRS range, allowing him to defend against the Mercedes duo. This, my fellow readers, was Formula 1 at its very best.
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Himanshu Chavan
(232 Articles Published)