Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz has highlighted that the Maranello team’s race-pace struggles in Formula 1 were evident ever since the final part of the previous Formula 1 championship, serving as warning signs.
Throughout the current Formula 1 campaign, Carlos Sainz and his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc have encountered challenges with their SF-23, lacking consistency, particularly during race days. As a result, they have been unable to effectively challenge Red Bull in the actual races this season, despite showing competitive performance during qualifying sessions, where the Ferrari single-seater has demonstrated relative proximity to the Red Bull RB19 of Max Verstappen.
Although the Italian side has made progress in recent weeks in understanding the necessary improvements and the development direction, the Maranello team is still not entirely confident that all the underlying factors have been fully addressed.
When reflecting on the unexpected difficulties faced by his side this season, Carlos Sainz believes that there were already indications last year raising concerns about the race-pace capabilities of their Formula 1 challenger.
“I think if you analyse it a bit as a bigger picture, already towards the second half of last year you could see that we had a car capable of fighting for pole positions but, in the race, we were always getting beaten by Red Bull,” Carlos Sainz recently said in an interview for Motorsport, which you can read in full here.
“People a lot of times were blaming it on the strategy. But actually, I think a lot of times we were just never as fast as them in the race, like in Budapest or in Austin, or places where we put it on pole and then we went backwards. Maybe the difference there was that we were on pole by one-tenth, and then on race pace, we were down by two or three tenths. But the delta itself this year is we are half a second off in some qualifying, and then eight tenths in the race. So, it’s some bigger deltas maybe.” – the Spaniard added.
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Scuderia Ferrari’s concerns about the race-pace reliability of their car arose in the previous year when the Maranello team had already finalized the concept for their SF-23, leading to inherent weaknesses being integrated into this season’s design.
According to Carlos Sainz, at that particular stage, the Italian side had no means of fully grasping the circumstances, particularly since their rival, Red Bull, only found their momentum in the middle phase of the 2022 Formula 1 championship. Considering the timing of Ferrari’s decision to commit to the 2023 design, Carlos Sainz pondered the situation:
“I think it’s something interesting because, if you look back at last year, by the time this car was born, it was when we were still super competitive. So, we didn’t have time to know what the second part of the season was going to be like. We didn’t know this car was going to struggle on race pace. We were fast in the race, and fast in quali, in the first six, seven races of the season. And that’s why probably this car is born this way.” – he explained.
“Also, because it’s after six/seven races where you commit to a car or to a concept, maybe even those strong first six races of the [2022] season also made us trust maybe this concept and this car. Maybe if the second half of the season, it would have come earlier, maybe the first half [of 2023] would have been easier. You can see it both ways. That is why Formula 1 is so complicated, and Formula 1 is so difficult to understand. It’s so easy to criticise from the outside. You just need to take it in the chin, be reactive, make sure you take the right steps and keep working as a team.” – the Spaniard added.
Although Carlos Sainz faced a learning curve with the F1-75 car of last season, he has shown greater mastery this year, despite its relative lack of competitiveness compared to Red Bull and even Aston Martin and Mercedes. However, beneath the surface, Carlos Sainz has acknowledged that the SF-23 fails to instill confidence when drivers push it to its limits.
“I’m not going to lie, the feeling with the car is still not great,” he said. “It is not a car that I drive to the limit, and I’m comfortable with it on the limit. It’s a car that can surprise you. It’s a car that is difficult. You can see it from the outside, but at least I understand more or less how I need to set it up and how I need to drive it. If I have these two variables covered, I know that every given weekend, I know I can put the car more or less where it needs to be. With the exception of Baku, which is still a weekend I don’t understand and I will never understand, every other weekend, I’ve been more or less where the car has to be. And in that sense, I am proud of it. But I’m also not happy because still I want to enjoy more, and I want to push more and I want to not go backwards in the race. I want to look forward. I don’t want to spend races looking in the mirrors. And this is what we’re trying to improve now.” – Carlos Sainz concluded.
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