By the time the race reached lap 22, Sainz opted to pit for a tire change because his speed was no longer faster than Leclerc's.
However, due to the identical performance of the two cars, Leclerc was stuck 0.5 seconds behind Sainz.
If they continued racing like this, the time gap between Leclerc and Qin Miao might be reduced to within the DRS zone before the first pit window.
But this week, Sainz's performance was indeed good, and Ferrari didn't want to put too much pressure on him.
Nor did they want to issue a team order for him to give up his position to Leclerc.
So they simply called Sainz into the pits.
Sometimes Ferrari is just so stubborn; they could have easily ordered Sainz to give up the position, as handing over a spot to a faster teammate is a very normal thing.
Yet Ferrari chose another path instead.
After switching to hard tires in the pits, Sainz naturally fell to fourth place.
