The Zandvoort weekend was probably one of the most challenging for Ferrari this season. Just like in Hungary, the men of the Prancing Horse once again struggled with the setup of the SF-23 on a high-downforce aerodynamic circuit. The Scuderia doesn’t seem able to be competitive in these conditions, and thus, Carlos Sainz found himself satisfied with a sixth-place grid position, over a second behind Max Verstappen’s pole position. A result that on other occasions would be categorized as a bitter disappointment.
“If you had told me about the sixth position before qualifying, I would have signed for it because it’s been a tough weekend so far, as you could see from the outside as well. I risked being eliminated in Q1, and yesterday I only did one flying lap on the dry in FP2, so I had to experiment in Q3. In the end, I have to be happy with sixth place because many made mistakes, but we managed to put in a couple of good laps,” said Carlos Sainz, summarizing his day.
The Spaniard emphasized that there is a problem when the high-downforce wings are fitted to the Ferrari. However, he managed to see the glass half full in this case as well because there is at least a clear trend and some certainty about the areas they need to work on for improvement.
“Well, I think we had a tough weekend in Hungary when we mounted the high-downforce wings. And we didn’t expect to have difficulties in Hungary. We got confirmation of that here: on this track, we would have expected to perform well, but in reality, we are struggling more than ever. So, we have a trend and a pattern, which is positive. On Friday, we did some testing, and we’re starting to understand why. We simply know that our high-downforce rear wings don’t work as they should. And when we come to these tracks, we don’t put the same downforce on the car as the others, and we slide much more. So the car is more complicated. Additionally, there’s wind, and the corners are long, which is not ideal for our car. And yes, we know where we need to improve.”
At the moment, the son of a racing legend is still waiting to find out if he will keep his sixth-place grid position or if he will be penalized. He is under investigation for a possible impeding incident involving Oscar Piastri during Q1.
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“I was coming out of the pit lane, and they didn’t tell me he was coming, but he wasn’t on a flying lap either, so I don’t think anything happened. Furthermore, with the spray kicked up by the tires, you can’t see much in the mirrors, so if they don’t warn you over the radio, it’s very difficult to see anything.”
“I think today we had a nearly perfect qualifying session while others made some mistakes. We put a car in the top 6 that was at the limit of the top 10, or maybe even further back. If I were to get a penalty for impeding due to the incident with Piastri, it would be a shame that such a small mistake can have such a big impact. Let’s hope nothing happens.”
Yesterday, the Technical Director Enrico Cardile explained that the car for next year will be designed with different concepts, departing from the path taken this year, which hasn’t yielded the desired results. According to Carlos Sainz, having clear ideas already is positive, even though they’ll have to grit their teeth in the second part of 2022.
“It’s important, and obviously, you can’t imagine all the work going on in Maranello and all the work we’re doing in the simulator, even with the simulator drivers, to improve the car for next year. But in the meantime, we’re still living through an F1 season, and we’re still experiencing our ups and downs, which makes the mood and perception change a lot. But we know what we’re doing for next year, and we hope to go in the right direction. But in the meantime, we’ll still have our Zandvoorts and our Hungaries. But we’ll also have our Spas. So I think we have to be optimistic and when we’re… at Zandvoort, be content with the best we can do, which today was a sixth place. And then, when we go to tracks like Spa, we’ll try to get podiums and top 5 finishes,” he concluded.
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