‘It’s been a nightmare of a season,’ Carlos Sainz opens up about staying positive in a ‘impossible to be more difficult’ season
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Carlos Sainz looking on after his retirement at the Austrian Grand Prix
To the surprise of everyone, Carlos Sainz beat his teammate Charles Leclerc in 2021. This year, for the first time in his career, the Spaniard had a car capable of winning races, but he ran into a massive issue: The car was not particularly suited to his driving style. While with time, it’s gotten considerably better for him, there have been quite a few setbacks.
Sainz has retired a total of 6 times this season, with two coming from ‘unforced’ incidents, i.e in Australia (he had dropped down the order after a problem at the start) and Japan (where he ‘aquaplaned’), two coming from mechanical issues, i.e Azerbaijan and Austria, and two from collisions right at the start. One in Imola (with Daniel Ricciardo), and one more recently in Austin, with George Russell.
He thinks that he’s back at a good level, but now, unfortunately, the window of opportunity is gone, and the car is just not good enough. As per Autosport, he called this season a ‘nightmare’: “It’s been a nightmare of a season to be honest because of all these things; all the DNFS, being slow when the car was quick, and now I’m quick and we are not as quick as we used to be. So it’s everything that has gone wrong.”
The 28-year-old added: “This season has gone wrong, but the positive side is that I’m keeping my spirits up even on a horrible season or impossible to be more difficult season. And I’m still there with my engineers fighting, still finding lap time in this car. I think it could have been very easy to give up on it and let the year go away, but the pole in Austin and again, being quick out here today, I think it’s a good sign for us.”
Also Read: “My goal is to be world champion,” Carlos Sainz reiterates his goals for 2023 with Ferrari
Carlos Sainz confident Ferrari can make progress in 2023
Since the summer break, it’s been very apparent that the Red Bull RB18 is by far the best car. While earlier the points Ferrari lost were due to their mistakes during the races or reliability failures, since Belgium, it’s been clear that they’ve found it hard to keep up with the pace that Red Bull, and in particular, Max Verstappen, have shown.
Sainz is ‘fully confident’ that the Ferrari will deliver a great package in 2023: “New year, new car, new regs even with the floor. We have another chance, and I fully trust that the team will produce another great car like the car that we had this year, and that we will learn from the mistakes done this year.”
The hope for Carlos Sainz would be that he isn’t fighting the car at the start of next season, and is able to start at his current level, which he believes is ‘pretty decent’. He aims to ‘complicate’ things for Max Verstappen.
Also Read: Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc give their verdicts on a disappointing outing in Mexico
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Aniket Tripathi
(1002 Articles Published)