Ferrari: Charles Leclerc or Carlos Sainz? Mario Andretti has some advice

A word of advice to the Cavallino, from someone who has raced and won with the Rossa and also graduated (elsewhere) as world champion.

Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz at Ferrari have been teammates for two seasons, and in 2023 they will share the Maranello team’s pit box for the third. Their internal hierarchies have been one of the dominant themes in recent months, not only among fans but also within the team itself. And giving advice to the Cavallino was someone who knows it very well, having himself driven the Rossa in two separate phases of his career: Mario Andretti.

“Ferrari has two drivers who are both capable of winning, and this is something stupendous,” noted the Istrian driver, interviewed by the ‘Gazzetta dello Sport,’ speaking of Leclerc and Sainz. “And up to a certain point in the season it is right that they let them both run free. When it becomes clear who is in contention for the title, then the other can run at his service. But at the beginning they have to be absolutely free.”

But Andretti, who won the world title in 1978 in Lotus (a season when his role as first driver over Ronnie Peterson was clear) also addressed Mattia Binotto’s farewell to Ferrari: “Something about strategies has to be changed, and that’s for sure. Because if your car is competitive, making different decisions from others doesn’t serve you.”

So Andretti went into more specifics. “This year it happened that they were running medium when everyone else had softs. I think of what happened at Interlagos with Leclerc. I don’t know who made that decision, but you have to change the system. And listen more to the drivers, who have to participate in decisions like that,” recalled the Italo-American champion, in Ferrari in 1971 and 1972 before returning briefly in 1982 as a teammate of Patrick Tambay (who passed away just Sunday).