Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz feels that his former team McLaren have one of the toughest cars on the grid to overtake after he found himself stuck behind Daniel Ricciardo at in the 2021 British Grand Prix last weekend.
Carlos finished the Silverstone race in sixth place having spent much of the second stint with the MCL35M of Ricciardo in his way.
Carlos Sainz left McLaren over the off-season to join Scuderia Ferrari and has started the 2021 campaign well, picking up a podium at Monaco and sitting seventh in the drivers’ championship.
While Charles Leclerc finished second and showed off the speed of that Ferrari, Sainz was left frustrated at not being able to make more progress.
“Unfortunately, it has happened to me now a few times that stuck behind a McLaren I am not able to pass,” he said. “It’s not news, they have a very strong straightline speed, very strong deployment and power on exit of corners and it is probably one of the most difficult cars to overtake.”
While the McLaren certainly possesses good straightline speed with the Mercedes engine in the back, Carlos Sainz also cited the impact dirty air can have on the car looking to make a pass.
“Yeah, unfortunately we were a step behind Ricciardo the whole race. First on the medium, then we actually managed to overcut him with a very strong pace during the cleaner laps but unfortunately after the slow pitstop I had to go behind him again. On the hard tyre it was even more difficult to overtake him, because it just felt like the hard tyre in the high speed could not take the load of the dirty air and I was understeering a lot more, and I couldn’t keep up with him in the high speed. Even though I had DRS I wasn’t close enough to him to try to get him.” – he concluded.
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