Carlos Sainz highlights Ferrari’s weakness amid expectations for Austin and 2024 F1 championship. Carlos Sainz points out Ferrari's major weakness.

The incident in Q3 compromised the Singapore weekend, but qualifying is certainly not the strong point of the Ferrari SF-24: Carlos Sainz explains the situation for the Prancing Horse and looks toward the United States Grand Prix in Austin, with some regret over the points lost in the 2024 Formula 1 Championship.

Carlos Sainz finished the Singapore Grand Prix in seventh place. The Ferrari driver, who started from P10, commented on his Sunday at Marina Bay, highlighting the real Achilles’ heel of the SF-24: qualifying.

Ferrari’s weakness is qualifying pace: Carlos Sainz shares his thoughts
“Our race pace was never our concern heading into this weekend,” begins Carlos Sainz. “What worried us more was the qualifying pace. This year, with this car, we have a very small window to make the tires work.” – the Spanish driver pointed out at the end of the Singapore Grand Prix, which was held earlier today at the 4.94-kilometre Marina Bay Street Circuit.

“I made a mistake in Q3, but we saw with Charles that the operating window for this year is really small. Sometimes this year we’ve paid for this weakness in qualifying. In the last six races, we’ll try to do better to start further up the grid,” he continues.

Looking ahead to Austin as a test, with regret
“Will Austin be a test of our progress? Yes, definitely. Now we need to see how this car performs on more normal tracks like Austin, which has much faster and combined corners. I don’t want to say that we missed an opportunity in these last three races, but I think we should have scored more points for the constructors’ standings,” the Spaniard explains with some regret – “But who knows, maybe we’ll arrive in the USA and Mexico with a car that’s still strong, and we can get back to scoring points.” – Carlos Sainz concluded.

Source: f1ingenerale