Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz has admitted that the Maranello team have an “underlying” issue with a key aspect of the F1-75 car, that has led to some far from ideal race starts in the current Formula 1 campaign.
At the same time, Carlos confirmed that the issue cannot be totally fixed this season, which means that both drivers will have to manage the situation in the best way possible, starting with tomorrow’s Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring circuit. The Spaniard came close to taking pole position in the final stages of qualifying earlier today, with a solid lap time that was better than his Maranello team-mate’s. However, Mercedes’ George Russell sprung up out of the blue and set an amazing lap to take his maiden Formula 1 pole position, ahead of the two Ferrari F1-75 cars.
While Carlos Sainz admitted that his last flying lap could have been better and did not expect it to be good enough for pole, he admitted that he did not expect George Russell to be the one beating his time: “No, honestly,” – the Spanish driver said when asked about the qualifying session in Hungary – “My lap in Q3 was good at the beginning, and in the second run of Q3, it was nothing special. And as soon as I went across the finish line, I knew someone was going to beat that because I had done a few mistakes during the lap. I knew I wasn’t going to be on pole and I was pretty… not happy, straight away. The thing is, I expected to be beaten by someone else, not by George, so congratulations to him because he must have done a great lap.” – he continued.
Ferrari should be faster than Mercedes in terms of race pace, but taking into consideration how difficult it is to pass at the Hungaroring track, being able to have a good race start will be very important tomorrow, as Ferrari attempt to gain some points against Red Bull, who will start from P10 and P11.
Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc will definitely target a one-two finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix, but the Spaniard is aware that a problem on the F1-75 car could make things difficult at the start: “I think the start will play a key role, but we are up against a Merc that are getting very good starts this season and we are not particularly good at them for a problem that we have. But still, if we nail the start and nail the strategy, we can win the race with the pace we have. So we’ll focus on that.” – Carlos added.
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When asked about how the Maranello team are planning to deal with the problematic getaways, he explained: “Yeah, but there’s an underlying issue that we cannot really get rid of this year. So we know we need to work in for next year and this year. We are maximising what we have. Some starts are pretty good, others are a bit on the limit, but hopefully tomorrow is one of those days where the starts are pretty good. I’m not going to go into detail, but it’s something on underlying in the car.” – the Ferrari driver concluded.
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