Carlos Sainz using ‘techniques I’m not used to’ to get to grips with Ferrari F1-75

Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz is confident that he can be “as fast as anyone” once he will be able to adjust his driving style and get to grips with the Ferrari F1-75 car, confirming he still faces some difficulties when driving the Maranello team’s 2022 challenger. In an interview during the Imola weekend, the Spaniard – who now has a gap of 48 points to his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc in the Driver standings ahead of the Miami Grand Prix – admitted he was “still not 100% happy with the car”.

Carlos Sainz had a positive start to the 2022 Formula 1 championship, with a second place finish at the Bahrain International circuit and a P3 finish in Saudi Arabia. However, things started to go wrong for Carlos on Lap 2 of the Australian Grand Prix, when he retired to due a crash, an incident that was followed by another error in the qualifying session at Imola which that saw him spin into the wall. And Carlos Sainz, who was then hit by the McLaren of Daniel Ricciardo in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix and therefore marked another race without scoring any points, confirmed admitted that he is still not “100% happy” behind the wheel of the 2022-spec Ferrari.

“I’m glad I look from the outside comfortable,” said Carlos Sainz, in an interview after the Imola Sprint race, in which he was to recover from P10 to P4 – “On the inside, it’s not comfortable yet. I’m still not as smooth as I’d like to be, and mistakes like [in qualifying] prove that maybe I’m still not 100% happy with the car and understanding it fully. But I’m hustling out there. I’m trying my best to get it up to my liking, to change my driving – and mistakes are going to come when you’re challenging yourself like that.” – he added.

Carlos Sainz – who has recently extended his contract with the Maranello team until the end of the 2024 Formula One campaign, said that more time behind the wheel was the only solution to getting on top of the Ferrari, explaining that there were “no magic weapons” that can help make him comfortable with the F1-75 car and allow him to fully capitalize on its true potential:

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“Honestly, I think it’s a combination of both,” said Sainz, when asked if he needed to adapt his driving, or whether the team could help bring the car more towards his liking. “There are no magic weapons. You have to do something from your side as a driver, and I’m having to do techniques and driving that I’m not used to doing in order to be fast with this car. And at the same time, I need some testing and I need some free practices to try things and bring it more to my liking, and for that I need FP1s and FP2s. As soon as I find the balance that I like and the combination with my driving, I know I can be as fast as anyone out there.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz concluded.