Sprint Race sacrifice to benefit Ferrari in Sao Paulo GP?

This begs questions: What's the point of Sprint Races if teams do not tackle them with 100% commitment to the cause? Is it not an exhibition more than race? Were Ferrari the only team 'racing' the Sprint with an eye on today's main event?

Even before Sprint Race Saturday, the Reds were focussing on Sunday's Grand Prix, stating in their media report yesterday: "As from this morning’s Shootout, the team decided to focus mainly on tomorrow’s race, at the expense of the Sprint, from the moment Leclerc opted not to use his last set of new Softs in Q3. "So both SF-23s lined up on the grid with used Soft tyres with the far from easy aim of making them last to the end.

"The team has worked to ensure that the choices made today pay off in Sunday's race over 71 laps. Charles lines up on the front row alongside pole sitter Max Verstappen. Carlos will start from seventh place with George Russell next to him," the report added.

After watching Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz struggle, with inadequate rubber, through the Sprint, ending P5 and P8 respectively, Vasseur admitted: "We decided to partially sacrifice today’s race, with a view to being in better shape for the Grand Prix, so we will have to wait and see if we have played our cards right.

"We didn’t use new tyres in this morning’s qualifying, so Charles will have one set of new Softs, Carlos will have one that’s just done two laps and they will both have two sets of new Mediums," explained the Ferrari boss.

The consequences of keeping the Ferrari big ammo for the race today were explained by Sainz: "This implied a lot of lift and coast from very early on in the race, which obviously affected our overall performance. However, I'm confident the race will be better and we’ll be able to push the car and the tyres more to recover some positions."

Leclerc implied the whole exercise on Saturday was one of damage limitation with the 'Big Prize' in mind: "Not using new tyres for qualifying, preferring to keep them for the GP on Sunday, we knew we would be on the back foot for the Sprint."

In their battle with Mercedes for P2 in the 2023 F1 Constructors' Championship, Ferrari dropped a further two points back and trail by 24 with today's Sao Paulo Grand Prix - Round 20 of 22 - to be followed by Las Vegas and the season finale in Abu Dhabi.

The Reds will be looking to make up that two-point deficit by outscoring Mercedes by more today, which is always a big ask and the suspicion is the German team also kept the 'big bullets' for today's main event.

Leclerc starts from P2, with Sainz down in P8 with the Mercedes duo in a Ferrari sandwich of sorts, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell starting row three, and a couple of Aston Martins in Row 2 and Max Verstappen lining his Red Bull up in P1.