Good mood in Jeddah before the start of the Saudi Arabian GP. AS asked Mick Schumacher (Haas), Esteban Ocon (Alpine) and Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri) at the press conference who of the three has the fastest car, and the answers were ironically added by Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz. German spoke first, which is always too correct: “I don’t know, it’s hard to tell. There has been only one race after the tests. and there are still performance margins to exploit. Overall I’m happy with the progression of our car, although I can’t speak for the other two. We’ll have to see it during the year.”
Ocon, Alonso’s teammate, pointed out to Mick from the beginning: “It will be very tight during the year, we saw it in qualifying, but I think that right now the Haas has the best package.” And Gasly pointed to the American car designed in Maranello: “Haas. Mick’s car. But we’ve only done two circuits, may vary. They seem the most competitive, although we will make sure we make it difficult for them.”
It was then that the world champion chimed in gracefully: “We can agree that Ferrari has the slowest car, that’s for sure. Everything is done by Carlos and Charles”. And Sainz, to his left, replied: “And the Red Bull is very reliable too.” “Of course I do!” Max closed between laughs. A few hours earlier, his team confirmed a problem with the fuel that forced him to retire twice at the Bahrain GP when he was aiming for second place, which finally went to the man from Madrid.
In any case, Sainz and Verstappen looked good throughout the press conference before getting into the cars and starting practice. They talked among themselves about the rest days, about watches, about the race, about the problems that Red Bull suffered. After all, they are not so different drivers: they started together in F1 in that Toro Rosso of 2015 and now both are measured against the same driver, Charles Leclerc.