For Carlos Sainz, the weekend at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps circuit was not unforgettable. The Spanish driver qualified eighth and finished seventh in the race behind his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc, who started from pole position and finished fourth on track, keeping behind the no longer dominant Max Verstappen. George Russell initially crossed the finish line first after a one-stop strategy, but his car was disqualified post-race for being under the weight limit. As a result, his Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton claims victory, with Oscar Piastri moving up to P2 and Charles Leclerc securing P3. This means that Carlos Sainz also gained a position, but it still remained a disappointed Sunday afternoon for the Spaniard.
Although the SF-24 wasn’t considered among the favorites in the Ardennes race, the Maranello car managed to show competitive moments, a sign of improvement compared to Ferrari in recent weeks. However, unlike his Monegasque teammate, the team opted for a different strategy with Carlos Sainz.
“We took some risks starting with the hard tire,” comments the Spaniard. “We also gained a position, so I was very optimistic and positive about this strategy. We managed to stretch it to the 20th lap. In hindsight, not enough, because probably doing just one stop seemed possible today. And yes, probably the most important thing is that we didn’t do either a one-stop or an optimal two-stop strategy. It’s easy to say now, in hindsight, but it seemed to me that the race promised much more.” – he pointed out at the end of the Belgian Grand Prix.
After the first twenty laps of the 44 scheduled, the Spaniard thought he had a chance to fight for the podium. Illusion shattered. Why? “I thought we could have a shot at the podium and then suddenly I ended up in seventh place, nine seconds behind the sixth,” he continues. “So, it’s clear that there’s something we need to examine. At the same time, I believe our direct competitors were faster today, and I don’t think it would have changed much.”
On the Belgian Sunday, where the race was won by a driver who led for 34 laps on the same tire, Carlos Sainz believes his stint was too short: “We should have tried to extend it by at least 10 laps. Or, if we had done two stops, maybe we should have stopped five or six laps earlier to spend as much time as possible on the hard tire, which was our goal today.”
Despite the improvement shown by the SF-24 in the last two races, Carlos Sainz thinks there is still much work to be done to close the gap with others: “Compared to Mercedes, Red Bull, and McLaren, we are still two or three tenths behind in the race. With my car, it seemed like we were in the fight for the podium and then, as soon as everyone put on the hard tires, we saw their pace. I felt competitive and fast, then when I heard the others’ times, I thought: ‘No, I’m not as fast as I would have liked,’” he concluded following the race at the 7.004-kilometre Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.
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