It took Carlos Sainz just five races to become the 58th Ferrari driver to stand on the podium in Formula 1 history, after his second place at the Monaco Grand Prix. But while Carlos said that the rostrum appearance had lifted the spirit of the whole Ferrari team, he isn’t expecting a repeat performance at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix this weekend.
The Spanish driver is now preparing to race at the Baku City Circuit, a track where he has finished in the top eight at every race bar the 2016 European Grand Prix, which he retired from. And although the Spaniard was doubtful about the chance of repeating his Monaco podium exploits this weekend, he still believed that Ferrari’s slow-speed dominance from Monte Carlo could translate into a healthy points haul in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
“It’s another street race but it has completely different characteristics. Baku is so tricky. You have all these very long straights. I think we spend two kilometres flat-out. We know that that is still a bit of a weakness for us in terms of top speed and acceleration, so we know that that is going to put us immediately a bit on the back foot going into the weekend. But at the same time, if we manage to get the car working well in the slow corners like we did in Monaco, we can still maybe be decently competitive – nothing close to Monaco, because Monaco I think it’s a bit of a one-off, a bit of a special case scenario, but we’re still going to try and score some good points this weekend and keep improving as a team.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz explained.
The Maranello team head into the Baku weekend just two points adrift of third-placed rivals McLaren in the constructors’ standings, with 78 points to McLaren’s 80.
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