Carlos Sainz admits Ferrari SF24 setup changes failed to address key problems in Lusail

Carlos Sainz expressed frustration that, despite making adjustments to his Ferrari’s setup, the team was unable to resolve the “fundamental issues” affecting their performance at the Formula 1 Qatar Grand Prix.

For some time now, both Ferrari and its drivers have been concerned that the high-speed corners of the Lusail International Circuit would prove challenging for the team. These fears have largely been realized, with Ferrari struggling to match the pace of McLaren and Mercedes in every session so far.

Even though Ferrari had the opportunity to tweak the car setup following the Sprint session before the Grand Prix qualifying, Sainz admitted that there is little more the team can do to improve the performance.

“We definitely tried quite a few things, both on setup, but also in tyre preparation, it just didn’t seem to change our fundamental issues,” the future Williams driver pointed out –
“I think when you’re talking about tyre preparation, you’re talking about the last tenth, while when you lack three or four tenths, and you see all the medium speed corners, you’re just lacking minimum speeds and a bit of three-corner balance, and you realise that maybe just it’s not quite in there. It just seems like our balance, or overloading the car in this long combined, 5th/6th gear corners, doesn’t seem to be performing as well as it should. I think we’ve tried everything possible with a soft tyre to switch it on, better, faster, slower, out laps, anything you can imagine. And we just simply seem to be finding a bit of a hard limit with the lap time that we could produce, in particularly with Charles, with the new floor, and also me with a bit of a more difficult session than yesterday. But it is what it is.” – the Spanish driver added at the end of the qualifying session for the Qatar Grand Prix.

Carlos Sainz has explained the key factor that cost him a higher starting position for the Qatar Grand Prix, after qualifying seventh on the grid, a full half-second behind the front-runners, George Russell and Max Verstappen.

The Spaniard expressed disappointment, believing he should have been placed higher, and raised concerns about Ferrari’s decision to send him out in Q3 without the possibility of receiving a tow from another car. The Spanish driver questioned the Maranello team’s strategy, feeling that this decision hindered his chances of improving his lap time and securing a better position on the grid: “I think I should have qualified P6 instead of P7. I went into the last lap of Q3 without a car in front, a tow in front, I don’t know why we were leading the pack, and that’s normally a couple of tenths in the straight for free. We missed a bit on that but, at the same time, it was a good lap, more or less what the car could achieve. So far, I think we’re maximizing everything, but maximising everything, as I said, it might not be enough.” – the Ferrari driver concluded.