Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz admitted to his mistakes in the Australian Grand Prix at the Albert Park Circuit, but at the same time added that the Maranello team also has to improve in order to maximize the potential of the F1-75 car. Carlos had a rather nightmare weekend in Melbourne, in the third round of the 2022 Formula 1 championship: he had to start the race from ninth place due to a series of misfortunate events in qualifying (a red flag for Fernando Alonso’s crash and an issue with the car starter meant he was not able to prepare the tyres for his fast run)
On Sunday, the team decided to try a different strategy for the Spanish driver, by starting on the hard tyre, with the aim of giving him a faster tyre in the second part of the 2022 Australian Grand Prix. However, Carlos Sainz dropped out of the top 10 during the opening two laps, falling as low as P14 before going too deep at Turn 9, sliding over the grass and beaching his Ferrari in the gravel at Turn 10, making it a short, but certainly not sweet Sunday afternoon.
It was later confirmed that Carlos Sainz once again had a steering wheel issue before the race start and this led to anti-stall and switch issues with the second wheel, which was not correctly prepared. As a result, on a weekend where Charles Leclerc scored a dominant victory for the Maranello team, Carlos leaves Australia with zero points and feels both himself and the Italian side must share the blame for the unfortunate outcome at the Albert Park Circuit:
“We had similar problems with the switches in the car as yesterday. Some switches not working. We had to change the steering wheel one minute before the start which meant the second steering wheel wasn’t well configured for the start, and I had the wrong start map setting which was giving me anti-stall in both starts, which meant unfortunately we triggered anti-stall. We went backwards on the hard tyre and then with the rush of wanting to come back through the field, I made a driving mistake. I need to be hard on myself for a driver mistake. Obviously we’re still getting to know these tyres and clearly the hard tyre this weekend was tricky in the initial laps and I shouldn’t have pushed as I’ve been pushing.” – the Spanish driver explained.
“It’s an easy conclusion: shouldn’t have pushed so much and I should have stayed patient. But at the same time, we were not perfect as a team. Too many steering issues, anti-stall problems and the qualy which meant it puts you on the back foot. It puts you under pressure and I didn’t react accordingly.” – Carlos Sainz concluded at the end of the 2022 Australian Grand Prix.
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Ferrari boss Mattia Binotto is confident Carlos Sainz can return to form in the next round of the 2022 Formula 1 season at Imola which hosts the upcoming Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, a home race for the Italian side.
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