Sainz reassures about the atmosphere at Ferrari before Jeddah

After a rather difficult first race, eyes are focused on Ferrari. Surrender for Charles Leclerc, fourth place for a Carlos Sainz unable to fight against Aston Martin, several internal upheavals instigated by Frédéric Vasseur…

And, already, we are announcing a crisis at the Prancing Horse. On the eve of the first laps of the wheel on the Dejddah circuit (Saudi Arabia), the Spanish driver wanted to ease tensions.

« It goes much better than it looks, says Sainz. When we see all the rumors that have come out regarding the last weekend, it seems that nothing is going well. But I can tell you: we are very clear on what we need to improve, how we need to do it, what the short, medium and long term objectives are… »

A serenity displayed by the Ferrari driver, pointing the finger more at the waves created by this first poor performance than at the atmosphere in Maranello. I'm even quite surprised at the way people wanted to destabilize the team, he admits, because some are talking about a crisis when we have only done one race. It's impossible to judge the performance of a team on one event. We are the first to be dissatisfied with its progress, we are the most affected, we will do our best to improve », assures Sainz, despite a start to the second round of the 2023 season which is not starting under the best auspices.

His teammate Leclerc will observe at least 10 penalty places, having already used his two regulatory electronic control units for the season. The first, replaced before the race for safety reasons, did not survive the abandonment of SF-23 No. 16. “ Charles' penalty isn't ideal, but it's only the beginning, delays Sainz. This is what 2022 has taught us: it's not how you start that matters, but how you finish. »

The very clear objectives » at Ferrari

It's time for calm among the Reds, aware that the season is still long. And Sainz would like to recall the progress made by the team since his arrival alongside Leclerc in 2021: “ I have been at Ferrari for three years, and the progress I have seen from 2021 to 2023 is truly impressive. They just haven't been big enough yet to win against Red Bull ou Mercedes. The start of the season was difficult, we had performance and reliability problems that we did not expect to encounter. But we are putting everything in place to ensure that this does not happen again. »

And to add, regarding the rest of the season: “ We are going to do a good job in terms of development, we have very clear objectives on what we need to improve, the car is exactly what we expected it to be in the wind tunnel, we know where the car is weak and what we want to »

The Spaniard is optimistic, since the conditions of the Corniche route should correspond more to the Ferraris. A fast track, the second fastest on the calendar behind Monza (Italy), and less tire degradation should allow the Scuderia to get closer to the Red Bull.

Answer from the first qualifying sessions on the timesheet for the 2023 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the first Free Practice session of which will take place this Friday March 17.

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