Carlos Sainz believes SF-23 weaknesses mask progress made by Ferrari with aerodynamic update package

Carlos Sainz believes SF-23 weaknesses mask progress made by Ferrari with aerodynamic update package. Carlos reflects on Spanish GP.

Carlos Sainz, a bittersweet top five at his home race
Considering the expectations built on Saturday, Carlos Sainz’s fifth-place finish in the Spanish Grand Prix at the Circuit de Catalunya cannot be considered a great result. Sure, the Spaniard “won” the derby against Fernando Alonso at his home race and finished ahead of both Aston Martin cars, but he started from the front row and dropped back along with the SF-23 car.

The stint on the medium tires was decisive, a compound on which #55 never found the right pace he had on the softs. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton was flying behind him, and even those who started from the sixth row easily overtook the Smooth Operator, who was completely defenseless and had no chance in terms of both pace and wheel-to-wheel battles.

Carlos Sainz’s words
“I tried all the tire compounds, but it’s always a very difficult circuit for us, with a lot of degradation and fast corners, which I struggled with a lot. I think the new package is doing what we expected, but bringing it to a challenging circuit for us perhaps doesn’t demonstrate the progress we’re noticing,” commented Carlos Sainz to Sky Sport F1.

According to the Spanish driver, therefore, the problem today was mainly the track, but it’s impossible to hide the weaknesses of an SF-23 that had a poor start and still seems entangled in its original issues: “I don’t hide that today our weaknesses were evident: tire degradation and fast corners. We know what our weaknesses are, we have opened a new window for improvement and development of the car, and we will focus on that, waiting for tracks that are more favorable for us. It felt pretty easy, but yeah, just shows that last year we would have made it back to the top four, top five starting from pitlane. This year field is tighter and it’s more difficult to make your way through. Work to do. Analysis to be done on this package. I trust that what we did is the right direction, now we need to start addressing our weaknesses with the bouncing, with the high-speed, and with this new package and direction hopefully we can start bringing performance.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz pointed out following the Spanish Grand Prix.