Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz feels the Maranello team entered the Qatar Grand Prix weekend “scared” which led to Ferrari not being able to fully maximise its potential result at the Losail International Circuit
Carlos started the race from fifth place after the grid penalties of Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas but had to settle for seventh place at the end, just ahead of his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc in a race dominated by tyre failures, caused by high wear and aggressive kerbs, which affected the Pirelli construction.
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Degradation was expected to be high entering the weekend due to the coarse track surface at the Losail International Circuit, a prediction proven correct during practice. Carlos Sainz is aware that the result for the Italian side could have been even better, despite the Scuderia taking a giant stride towards securing third in the constructors’ standings in its fight with McLaren.
“It is not exactly what we wanted but we went into the race quite scared about the tyre wear from Friday and we had to drive quite conservatively with the tyres because we know we eat the front tyres. We did a strong first stint on the medium, we managed to make it quite long into the race but with the hard, we were far too conservative. The hard was a much better tyre allowing you to push and maybe we were saving the tyre too much until at one point I said ‘I think there is plenty of tyre left, I am going to push’. I was catching [Lance] Stroll but unfortunately there was Stroll with DRS from [Esteban] Ocon and we couldn’t make it but we had strong pace at the end.” – Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz explained.
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