The streets of Baku put a strain on Carlos Sainz all weekend. Lacking confidence with his car, disappointment took over for the Ferrari driver.
Laps times during the different session of the weekend compared to the one of his teammate’s Charles Leclerc are a clear evidence of the difficulties the Spaniard had to deal with.
In Friday’s qualifying session for the Grand Prix, Sainz was in fact 0.813 seconds off Leclerc’s pole time, then 0.59s off him in the ‘Sprint Shootout’ that set the grid for Saturday’s sprint race. Lastly Sainz finished fifth on Sunday, 24s behind Leclerc, after an outstanding overtake by Fernando Alonso on him to rub salt in the wounds.
The Aston Martin once again has demonstrated his potential and speaking of it Sainz is quite honest saying: “he [Alonso] was always going to finish ahead of me today.”
Talking about his own performance, the Ferrari driver commented:
“The first stint on the medium [compound tyre], I looked like I found a bit of pace back, and then as soon as I put the hard on my struggles of the weekend appeared again and I just had to bring home a P5.”
“I was always very on the limit of crashing or feeling like I was losing the car,” admitted the Spaniard. “A pretty long race, and mentally stressful after the struggle of the weekend. Brought home the P5. I’m sure we will find out why this happened this weekend, and I’m sure in Miami we’ll be back on form.”
The 2022 British Grand Prix winner is now looking ahead of the Miami Grand Prix with mixed feelings: if on one hand the upcoming weekend represents a way to redeem himself, on the other he believes he might need a some more time to leave behind his difficulties of the Azerbaijan GP.
“In a way, I find it positive that the next race is coming quickly, because I can get this one behind me very quickly. And on the other hand, obviously, I probably would need a bit more time. But we’ve turned it around in the past within three or four days, and I expect that we will do the same before Miami.”
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari
