Zandvoort was probably one of the most complicated weekends of the season for Ferrari. Just like in Hungary, the men of the Prancing Horse again went head-to-head with the set-up of the SF-23 on a high downforce circuit.
The Reds really don’t want to know about being competitive in these conditions and therefore it also happens to find themselves having to deal with a satisfied Carlos Sainz for a sixth place on the grid, with a gap of over a second from Max Verstappen’s pole position. A result that on other occasions would be pigeonholed as a bitter disappointment.
“If they had told me about sixth place before qualifying, I would have signed, because it’s been a tough weekend so far, as you can see even from the outside. I risked being eliminated in Q1 and yesterday I only did one dry lap in FP2, so I had to experiment in Q3. In the end, so I have to be happy with sixth place, because several people made mistakes, but we managed to do a couple of good laps,” said Sainz, tracing the balance of his day.
The Spaniard underlined precisely that there is a problem when high-load wings are mounted on Ferraris. In this case too, however, he managed to see the glass as half full, because at least there is a clear trend and therefore some more certainty on the aspects on which we need to work to improve.
“Well, I think we had a difficult weekend in Hungary when we fitted the high-downforce wings. And we didn’t expect to have any difficulties in Hungary. We had it confirmed here: on this track we would have expected to be in good shape and in we’re actually struggling more than ever. So we have a trend and a pattern, which is good.”
“We did some testing on Friday and we’re starting to understand why. We just know that our high downforce rear wings aren’t working the way they should. And when we come to these tracks, we don’t put as much downforce on the car as the others and we slide a lot more So the car is more complicated. Also, it’s windy and the corners are long, which isn’t ideal for our car. And, yes, we know where we need to improve.”
Carlos Sainz, Scuderia Ferrari
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
At the moment, the son of the same family is still waiting to understand if he will keep his sixth place on the grid or if he will be penalized, because he was under investigation for a possible impediment to Oscar Piastri during Q1.
“I was coming out of the pitlane 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. Also, with the spray coming off the tires you don’t see much in the mirrors, so if they don’t warn you by radio it’s very difficult to see anything”.
“I think today we had an almost perfect qualifying, while the others made some mistakes. We put a car in the top 6 that was on the edge of the top 10 or maybe even further back. If I were to take a penalty for impeding for the episode with Piastri, it would be a shame that such a small mistake could have such an impact. Let’s hope nothing happens.”
Yesterday, the technical director Enrico Cardile explained that next year’s car will be designed with different concepts, moving away from the road taken this year, which has not yielded the desired results. According to Sainz, already having clear ideas is positive, even if in the meantime we will have to grit our teeth in this second part of 2022.
“It’s important and of course you can’t imagine all the work that’s going on in Maranello and all the work we’re doing in the simulator, even with the simulator drivers to improve the car next year. But in the meantime, we’re still having an F1 season and still having our ups and downs, which causes the mood and perception to change a lot.”
“But we know what we are doing for next year and we hope to go in the right direction. But in the meantime, we will still have our Zandvoorts and our Hungary. But we will also have our Spas. So I think we have to be optimistic and when we are.. “In Zandvoort we’ll settle for the best we can do, which today was a sixth place. And then, when we go to circuits like Spa, we’ll try to get podiums and the top 5,” he concluded.
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