Carlos Sainz has criticized the unfortunate upgrade package that Ferrari introduced at the Spanish Formula 1 Grand Prix before canceling it after two races. Tightly attached to the car at the start of the three-race European race, Sainz and teammate Charles Leclerc struggled to achieve the expected pace at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
Scuderia hopes these developments will help in the fight against Red Bull and McLaren. However, Ferrari finds itself falling behind Mercedes, which has closed the performance gap in recent rounds with a series of updates of its own. Fifth and sixth places in Spain were followed by a fifth and seventh place in the sprint at the Red Bull Ring, before Sainz claimed a podium at the Austrian Formula One Grand Prix , but teammate Leclerc could only finish in 11th place.
Although the results weren’t that bad, Ferrari and the drivers had seen enough and decided to return the SF-24 to Grand Prix Emilia Romagna configuration from May. “Obviously not good enough,” Sainz told media including RacingNews365 at the British Formula 1 Grand Prix. “We basically have the same car as in Imola. “Since Imola, everyone has upgraded and they’ve probably added a few tenths of a second to the car while we had to go back [to Imola spec].”
Competitor ‘one step ahead’ compared to Ferrari
The triple grand prix winner explained how time-consuming development was, with his team now having to retrace steps to understand how and why the latest upgrade failed to achieve the desired impact . “We spent two or three months improving performance in the wind tunnel and the performance we were able to improve in these three months,” said the 29-year-old.
Like the Austrian Formula 1 Grand Prix, the race at Silverstone saw Sainz have a stronger weekend than Leclerc, who crashed out in Q2 during Saturday’s practice session. While the Spaniard sometimes pushed for second place in the race, he had to settle for fifth place. Meanwhile, his teammate made good initial progress, but an incorrect call on the intermediate tire ruined his afternoon – he finished P14. “I feel like today was at least an approach back to basics, back to a car that we knew was okay at Imola and we just need to upgrade it from here,” affirmed Sainz , before mentioning the situation Ferrari is currently facing: “Unfortunately, our rivals, they are clearly one step ahead of us”.
