F1 | Sainz: “Hard weekend, we saw some problems with the car”

In his penultimate “home” event as a Ferrari driver, Carlos Sainz clearly expected something more. However, the Imola weekend did not provide great satisfaction, except for a fifth place finish which, however, left a bad taste in the Spaniard’s mouth, especially due to certain problems which, from his point of view, compromised the weekend .

In the first part of the race, Sainz tried to keep up with Leclerc, although over the long distance he suffered the blow, until he reached a gap of around four and a half seconds from his teammate when the Monegasque stopped.

A gap that progressively increased also because, behind him, Oscar Piastri put a lot of pressure on the Spaniard, staying in the DRS area for a long time, but without being able to find that extra margin to attempt the attack. However, it was precisely in that phase that the fate of Sainz’s race was also decided, with Ferrari deciding not to cover the undercut of the Australian from McLaren, who then clearly took the lead.

At that point, Sainz tried to extend for a few more laps but, on the other hand, he wasn’t even able to extend significantly because the pressure behind him came from George Russell. “There’s always a question mark about what we could have done, maybe we could have covered the undercut on Piastri, because in the end the pace between us was very similar. Whoever was in front seemed to be able to stay in front. We tried to extend, but in the end I could only extend a few laps because Russell was putting pressure on us and would undercut, so it didn’t work. We will also learn from this,” Sainz said at the end of the race.

By the time Sainz returned to the track after the stop, the gap was already around five seconds, not to mention that, having also had to overtake Sergio Perez, the gap then widened to six seconds. A gap that remained almost constant at least until the moment the dubbing phase began: after having closed again, Sainz himself also lost a lot of time, slipping eight seconds behind the Australian.

Beyond this discussion, however, the Ferrista underlined how there were many different problems that had a negative impact not only on his race, but also on his qualification: “It was a difficult race for me, precisely on the personal. Yesterday after qualifying we saw a couple of problems with the car which probably also had an impact today. We need to investigate with and understand what we can change. It wasn’t an ideal race, obviously I’m not happy because in the race you want to do well, you don’t want it to be the most difficult race of the season.”

“For some reason, a lot of things aligned and I struggled a lot. I think we know more or less why, but we need to make sure we find changes for Monaco. It’s not something related to setup, it’s related to other things which, obviously, we don’t talk about in F1. But we saw a couple of things on the aero side and on the engine side, especially at the start of the race, that we need to resolve,” Sainz said at the end of the day, underlining how the problems had a negative impact on his weekend. Furthermore, the poor feeling with the soft tire also played a role in qualifying, a compound on which he wasn’t exactly at ease over the weekend.

Carlos Sainz, Ferrari SF-24

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

Clearly in the next few days we will study what didn’t work, also from a Monaco perspective, because our gaze is already turned to next week, to one of the most iconic stages of the world championship. Monte Carlo is a track where, naturally, qualifying plays a decisive role, even more than in Imola, so being able to find that something extra on the flying lap, an aspect in which the SF-24 has so far shown some signs more difficult than the race pace, will be the key to achieving a good result.

“In Monaco a lot will depend on qualifying. We need to understand and analyze how to improve our car in qualifying, because it is very clear that in the race, especially today with Leclerc, we were not far from the McLarens and the Red Bulls. If we start from the front, it will be a completely different race. We know where we need to focus.”

“Monaco is such a special track that I think all four top cars can win with a good qualifying lap. Q3 will be a good moment, because I think we will all be very close.”