Carlos Sainz backs Ferrari to be “competitive” in Saudi Arabian GP

The Bahrain GP was rather disastrous for Ferrari, but Carlos Sainz thinks they should do better in the next race, the Saudi Arabian GP.

Carlos Sainz backs Ferrari to be “competitive” in Saudi Arabian GP

Carlos Sainz

Ferrari certainly did not have a good time of it in Bahrain. While Red Bull were always going to be favorites, especially after their performance in pre-season testing, the first race of the season quickly turned into a disaster for the Italian team. The tire degradation was much worse than Red Bull and even Aston Martin. Late on during the race, Fernando Alonso passed Carlos Sainz, and rather comfortably at that.

Charles Leclerc, who had started on a pair of fresh softs, looked much more comfortable (and faster), but that quickly changed. On lap 41, he pulled off-track with an engine issue, and that was the end of his race. The reason for this retirement has been reported to be related to the control electronics and the energy store components. Both of these components were replaced the morning of the race, from within the allocation, as a precaution. Human error has also been blamed.

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Despite the reliability issues, the main concern was still the lack of race pace compared to Red Bull. Thankfully, for Ferrari, they should fare better the next race in Jeddah. The SF-23 is perhaps even faster than the Red Bull RB-19. Moreover, tire degradation is not as large a factor as the track surface is not as rough. Sainz does concur that Bahrain may have brought the worst out of the SF-23, which may already have tire degradation issues on other, less rough tracks.

FS Video

Sainz told media, including RacingNews365.com: “As you saw in my battle with Fernando – it also nearly cost me a position to Lewis – as soon as we push this car on these tyres, you just go backwards and you start degrading. It is clearly our biggest point of weakness and clearly Red Bull and Aston Martin are doing something with the tyres that we don’t fully understand. We need to find it because it is costing us in the race.”

Read More: “A bit of a reality check,” Carlos Sainz worried by Ferrari’s lack of pace in comparison to Red Bull and Aston Martin

Carlos Sainz: Front limited nature of Jeddah could help Ferrari

Carlos Sainz (L) Frederic Vasseur (C) Charles Leclerc (R)
Carlos Sainz (L) Frederic Vasseur (C) Charles Leclerc (R)

In contrast to the early F1-75, the SF-23 veers more towards understeer. Carlos Sainz is said to prefer understeer, so in theory, it should help him. But during testing, even he was reporting that the car was understeering too much. Ferrari have apparently planned developments to address this. That’s something to look forward to, but the simple truth is that the Jeddah track suits the Ferrari better overall as well.

So, Sainz thinks the Scuderia can be more ‘competitive’ there. He said: “I believe we can be competitive [in Jeddah] because the tarmac allows you to push more, there’s less deg. We only have one sample that is Bahrain with these cars, we’ve been here for seven days running these cars. It is clear what our problem is in Bahrain, so let’s see in Jeddah, with a different tarmac and it is a bit more front-limited which could help us.”

If Ferrari hope to fight for the title this season, then their fightback has to start as soon as possible. Jeddah is a good place for that, as the track suits them better and it’s only the second race of the season. How they match up with Red Bull there, only time will tell.

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