Carlos Sainz says Ferrari’s qualifying pace somewhat misleads them in their fight against Red Bull, who are versatile on Sundays to beat them.
From 2023, it was evident that Ferrari were good on Saturdays but were falling short on Sundays. The race pace was not that bad, but tyre degradation troubled them the most which hampered their running in the races against Mercedes and Red Bull.
In fact, Sainz reckons that the qualifying pace mislead them as Red Bull were quite versatile on Sundays to edge them out at ease. As has been said for long, Ferrari is certainly working to improve their Sundays which they started already in 2023.
There will be further meets to analyse all-through January as per Sainz just a month before the season kicks-off in Bahrain. “There are still a lot of meetings to analyze everything,” he said. “In January, there will be a review a month before the start of the race and then you will see everything better.
“Red Bull understands very well what the car has to have with this regulation. You see that on Saturday we can beat them or match them, you see that you are not far away, but in the race it’s half a second per lap, half a minute in the race, it’s all misleading. We have all learned that their great advantage is their versatility on Sunday.
“That’s where I think we have to find the key. In June 2022 we thought we were not so far away, as Mercedes thought, but 2023 showed us that we did not take the right direction,” summed up Sainz.
Here’s F1 2023 teams’ tier order: https://formularapida.net/f1-2023-teams-categorised-in-tier-system-for-their-performances/
Here’s F1 2023 drivers’ tier order: https://formularapida.net/f1-2023-drivers-categorised-in-tier-system-for-their-performances/
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