#Mexico #GrandPrix #Ferrari #Leclerc #Saintz #Bottas #Hamilton #MercedesAMG
Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) team principal Mattia Binotto praised the team’s drivers after the exchanged positions 2X when instructed by the team during the Mexico City Grand Prix.
The worldwide broadcast of the race showed Charles Leclerc initially hesitating to respond to a request to let team mate Carlos Sainz Jnr pass him. Mr. Leclerc complied, and Sainz later backed off by 6 secs to hand the position back again.
The swap was arrange to give Mr. Sainz an opportunity to attack Pierre Gasly for 4th place. Mr. Leclerc 1st allowing Mr. Sainz by into 1th before Mr. Sainz returned the favor to his team mate in the closing laps.
Mr. Binotto explained how the team planned the strategy with their drivers prior to the race.
“It’s a scenario we discussed this morning during our usual strategy meeting,” he said.
“We knew that at some stage in the race, maybe because we somehow made a different strategy between the two – one stopping early, the other one staying longer on track and the one staying longer with a tyre disadvantage by the end of the race. So we knew that this could have been maybe an opportunity to try to catch up to the driver ahead, who was Gasly.
“But that was on paper, and we said by doing that, we would have given an advantage to one of the two drivers. So we stopped with the intention to try to catch up Gasly and then swap back if that would not have worked and we did it. So I think it has been a good team spirit.”
Mr. Sainz pulled away from his team mate in a bid to catch Mr. Gasly, but was unable to get close enough to be of any threat to the AlphaTauri. Mr. Sainz then backed off heavily through the 1st sector on lap 69 of the 71 lap race, sacrificing a 6.4-sec advantage over the his teammate allowing him to catch and reclaim his 5th position.
“It has been, in the collaboration of the two drivers, great – the way it has been managed,” Mr. Binotto said.
“It’s not easy when you are six, seven seconds ahead, we need to slow down so much to swap again to give back the position. But the best thing is that they both understand the situation at the moment.
“So we tried whatever we could try to catch up Gasly. But when we realized it would not have been possible, we simply kept the initial positions.”
For the F1 race highlights, please click here.
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“Valtteri Bottas will start from pole position for this yrs Mexican Grand Prix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, but Ferrari is way out front in the stock department” — Paul Ebeling
Ferrari (NYSE:RACE) stock at the close Friday in NY: 262.52+5.19 (+2.02%) At close: November 5 4:00P EDT and 264.23 +1.71 (+0.65%)
After hours: Nov 5, 04:55P EDT
MercedesAMG stunned Red Bull with a qualifying turnaround to secure a front row lockout, with Bottas took his 19th career pole position in F1 ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the 71 lap race.
The result has Max Verstappen in 3rd place with team-mate Carlos Perez in 4th place.
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly won the ‘best of the rest’ battle again with 5th place in qualifying, as Carlos Sainz Jr claimed 6th place for Ferrari just 0.002s faster than McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo.
Charles Leclerc had to settle for 8th place for Ferrari with AlphaTauri’s Tsunoda and McLaren’s Lando Norris completing the Q3 contenders, but both will start the Mexican GP from the back of the grid due to power unit change penalties.
Current weather forecasts predict Sunny and dry conditions at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, with a very small chance of rain during the race. The temperature is expected to be 20c for the start of the race.
Click here for the how and when you can watch the race.
Ferrari is The Aristocrat of the automotive sector.
Ferrari finished Friday at 262.52 +5.19 within its 52 wk range of 127.73 – 266.67 in NY just shy of its all time high.
Key technical indicators have turned Very Bullish across the board. The candlestick pattern indicated the confirmation of the break out at 196.01 on 3 November and confirmed.
The Key support is at 261.52, the resistance is None. All of our Key technical indicators are all Very Bullish in here.
Societe Generale places a Street high price target of $290 on RACE as compared to the average sell-side price target at 195.93. Most Street analysts still do not know how to view Ferrari.
Friday, Morgan Stanley called out $RACE a “sleeper” EV play as the firm can justify more than 100% of the company’s value with its ICE business.
Note: At the beginning of Y 2020 I called RACE at 230 by year’s end, the stock was trading at 165.22 on 1 January 2020, on 29 December 2020 it marked 233.66 intraday, an all time high
The Maranello Outfit’s shares were raised to Buy from Hold at HSBC, and Buys at Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.
UBS is now calling the stock at 365. I have not seen any other Street downgrades.
Ferrari will continue to create value in the long term as it becomes the world’s 1st Super Luxury brand.
Ferrari is a quality 1st long term luxury products investment, BAML raised its call to 270 long term.
I have raised my long term target to 375, a Strong Bull call, the strongest on the Street and am holding the mark during this recent profit taking, and seeing RACE as a buying opportunity.
Ferrari has an average rating of Buy and a consensus target price at 186.31.
Ferrari will continue to create value in the long term. Ferrari is a quality 1st long term luxury products investment, and I am calling it 375 long term, the Top call on the Street, and adjusting it to 250/share short term.
A number of large investors have recently bought shares of RACE, and there have been very few instances of insider selling over the past yr that we have seen. And Ferrari continues to buy back its stock in here.
The stock is considered defensive in the sector.
There is F1 racing at the Mexican GP this weekend, tune in here.
Have a Super race weekend, Keep the Faith!
