Even though Carlos Sainz will not be racing for Ferrari in the upcoming season, the Spaniard showed patience and overtook an ailing Charles Leclerc and George Russell to finish third behind the Red Bulls in Sakhir. Despite a less-than-ideal start after losing a spot to Perez, Sainz made nice moves to climb back up the ranks.
Reflecting on the race, Sainz emphasised the importance of a strong start to the season and the fact he wasn’t defending constantly like he had to at this race in 2023 and throughout last year.
“I think it’s just important to start the season well, start the season with a strong race. Not for my future, just for myself.
“Because, last year I spent a lot of the races looking in my mirror, saving tyres, defending my position, and I remember at the car, I was saying, this year I wish we had a car to go racing, and attack people, and don’t care too much about the tyres, and make some overtaking moves, and look forward rather than look backwards, and that’s exactly what we got.
“I got an attacking race, a really good race pace, and from there, everything felt really good to finish the trip. It wasn’t a straightforward and uneasy race, but yeah, I enjoyed it a lot.”
While Sainz lauded the SF-24’s impressive race pace, he also highlighted some concerns, particularly regarding brake behaviour and high vibrations. Elaborating on these issues, he explained:
“Yes, the first stint, and the beginning of the second stint, whenever we were in traffic, we were having a lot of brake vibrations, and the pedal at one point started to go long.
“So it was always a balancing act between, do I go for it and try to get rid of the other people, or do I start saving my brakes because they’re going to fail, or something’s going to happen?
“I started saving by moving a bit on the straight, to pull to the side as it was getting hotter, and the vibrations started to get better, and then I started to make moves and move forward, but as I said, the start wasn’t great, the brakes were still a bit of a limitation for a bit, and then once everything settled, I could do my pace, do my overtakes, and go for it.”
Despite aggressive overtaking manoeuvres over his teammate, Sainz emphasised he was taking no risks and wanted to make sure he gave Leclerc space.
“It never felt close inside the car, whenever I tried to overtake him, I always try to leave as much margin as possible, and I try to do it whenever I feel like I’m fully under control, and I’m not putting any car at risk, and that’s exactly what I did. It felt like a very good moves, and I’m always keeping an eye on Charles, and I’m not making him also lose time or anything like that.“
When asked about Ferrari’s prospects against Red Bull in future races, Sainz acknowledged the existing performance gap but remained optimistic about Ferrari’s potential to bridge it if they can add extra performance.
“I think we are a bit too far at the moment, from the proper challenge for race weeks. If they put everything together and they make everything perfect. But the base that we have on the car this year and the aero platform and the car that we’ve put on track feels and drives a lot more normal than last year.
“And from here, if we offset this level of downforce, if we just keep adding downforce to this car, I think we can start getting closer to that. But we need to start doing it from now, because if not, they’re going to start pushing and getting far away.”
