Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz is confident that the Maranello team’s improved form last weekend in front of its home fans at the Monza circuit is a sign that the team is heading in the right direction, despite the fact that Ferrari had a significant drop in performance during the previous three races, which it is still trying to completely understand and fix.
The Italian side started the 2022 Formula 1 championship strong as Charles Leclerc was able to get on top of the podium two times in the first three races (Bahrain and Australia, while also taking a second place (Saudi Arabia), which put the Maranello team in a great position early on in the F1 campaign. Unfortunately, it has gone downhill for Ferrari since then, which has opened the door for Red Bull to almost secure both world championships this season.
In addition to this, in the previous three races ahead of the Italian Grand Prix (Hungaroring, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and Zandvoort), the F1-75 cars were barely able to beat the resurgent Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell. Things improved last weekend at the Monza circuit, where Ferrari proved to be ahead of the W13 cars, as the two teams battle for second place in the Formula 1 Constructor Standings.
Carlos Sainz feels that without his gird penalties which forced him to start from the second half of the grid, the Maranello team might have had a shot of challenging Max Verstappen for the race win in Italy:
“If I wouldn’t have had a penalty, with both cars up there, we could have put Max under a lot of pressure. Unfortunately I had to take a penalty, we couldn’t divide strategy, so I think we left Max to choose the contrary option of Charles [Leclerc]. I think when we stop having penalties and we go to favourable tracks like Singapore and I’m up there, then we will have two cars, not to gamble, but to play around with Max and I think we will be in a better position. I think not having me up there, with the pace I had, was detrimental.” – the Spaniard explained.
Scuderia Ferrari has improved in terms of car performance as compared to the previous season, but overall is still in the process of rebounding from its difficult moment from two seasons ago, when the Italian side finished sixth in the constructors championship. Mattia Binotto, who replaced Maurizio Arrivabene as team principal, changed the team and decided to bring in Carlos Sainz to partner Charles Leclerc starting with the 2021 season.
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The Spanish driver also points out the fact that the Maranello team has made an important step forward since he joined from McLaren and at the same time confirmed that he is encouraged by what he sees behind the scenes:
“It’s a good reaction from our team that is maturing, a team that is learning a lot from this difficult year, and a team that has done a massive step compared to last year in terms of putting ourselves back into winning contention. But we’re still doing mistakes, we’re still learning. It’s a young team I think and we are young in working together. I think there’s been progress this year and even though it’s a difficult second half of the season, I think we’re going to take a lot of knowledge from this to [use] in the last few races and to go for it next year again.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded.
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