Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz feels the Maranello team will be able to “play a better game” and take the fight to Red Bull in the next races, despite the poor performance in the opening round of the 2023 Formula 1 championship at the Bahrain International Circuit.
The Spaniard ended the Sakhir event in fourth place, almost 50 seconds behind Max Verstappen at the flag, as the Dutchman easily secured the race win in a dominant display for the Austrian side. In addition to the poor race pace caused mainly by the tyre degradation issues, Ferrari also had to face more reliability problems: Charles Leclerc had to retire the car on lap 40 due to an engine electrical failure while he was running in third place.
There was a lot of criticism for the Italian side following the poor performance in Bahrain, but Ferrari team boss Frederic Vasseur immediately defended the SF-23 challenger, pointing out that the set-up for Sakhir was not the ideal one, which made the deficit to Red Bull even bigger. The Frenchman is therefore confident there is no fundamental issue with the overall concept of the car.
Carlos Sainz is also optimistic that the season-opener was in fact just an unrepresentative one-off and feels the Maranello team can “play a better game” to challenge Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, especially on certain types of tracks, as should be the case next weekend when Formula 1 heads to the Jeddah Corniche circuit for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
The Spaniard hopes that the track characteristics of Jeddah Corniche circuit, including a much smoother asphalt, after the ‘cheese grater’-like surface of Bahrain, should help the SF-23 car: “The Tarmac in Jeddah is very different. The limitation is not so much at the rear. So, we’re pretty sure it’s going a bit different at other tracks. Bahrain is the most extreme for [degradation] of the year so we only have one example. “I’m confident in other circuits we can play a better game but for Bahrain, it was our reality.” – Carlos added.
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The Italian side has to focus on solving its high degradation which was clearly seen in the first round of the season. With Mercedes also suffering from similar issues, it was Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso who took advantage at the Bahrain International Circuit, overtaking Carlos Sainz for an unexpected third place finish. As a result, the Spaniard is aware that Aston Martin will be a treat for Ferrari this season, describing the Silverstone squad’s turn of speed as “very concerning” for the Maranello team.
Yet racing on a circuit where the SF-23 “cooks the rear tyres less” would, Carlos hopes, allow the Italian side to at least challenge Aston Martin for a place on the podium. Tyre wear was also a key weakness for Ferrari’s car in 2022, especially in the second part of the season. While Ferrari tried to understand how to improve this critical aspect, it seems that the problem has not been solved, with Carlos Sainz describing the levels of degradation as “the same”.
He added: “It’s about as bad as it was last year. It’s just that the other two cars [Red Bull and Aston] for some reason found something that means they degrade half [as much].”
Ferrari will be hoping to have one key advantage over rivals Red Bull in this second round of the championship: the SF-23’s superior top speed shown during winter pre-season testing and the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend should represent a major strength at the flowing Saudi street circuit next weekend.
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