Ferrari’s grip on second place in the Constructors’ Championship slipped away following McLaren’s 1–2 finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix on Sunday. The Prancing Horse spent most of the afternoon being the fourth-fastest car in the pecking order.
Their qualifying session set them up for a potential podium finish with Carlos Sainz in fourth, who out-qualified his teammate Charles Leclerc in sixth. However, the former’s bad start hindered his hopes of a podium finish.
At the start, he was jumped by Lewis Hamilton, Leclerc and Alonso and would drop to 7th as a result. He quickly regained the place from his fellow Spaniard.
Sainz knew his costly sluggish start would prove fatal as Hungaroring favored track position and undercuts. Leclerc finished the race in Spaniard’s starting place, and Sainz ended up in his teammate’s starting spot.
When asked after the race, Sainz was disappointed with his slow start as it sealed his fate seconds into the race.
The Spaniard remained optimistic as it was “his first bad start of the year” and he would not be too hard on himself and the team.
“Obviously disappointed, because the start cost me pretty much the whole race.
“First bad start of the season. So it’s not like I can be too hard on myself or the team.”
Sainz explained that he was going to review and analyse his poor start to find out the reason behind it, be it a procedural mistake or an overly aggressive clutch setting.
“We need to analyse whether it was my mistake in the procedure, or whether we just had too aggressive clutch settings for the start. We just paid the price with that wheelspin that then got me off the line. So we’ll have to have a look and analyse it.”
Sainz added that being on the dirty inside line of the grid further hurt his chances of recovery and once again answered that he and the team needed to analyze the footage.
“The dirty side of the grid you’re a bit more on the limit with clutch slip always. I don’t know if we were too aggressive on the targets, or if I just simply made a procedure mistake. This is what we need to analyse.
“At the same time as I said, one bad start in the whole season. All the other starts have been great. So I’m going to try not to be too hard with myself or the team, and it’s just a shame that it’s happened at the track where the start is probably more important.”
For the Hungarian Grand Prix, the Maranello-based team introduced a revised floor to limit the bouncing problems that had continued to trouble the team since Spain.
But Sainz’s compromised race and having to play catch-up in the first two stints meant that the 29-year-old was unable to draw any conclusive argument for his revised SF-24.
“It seemed okay. Honestly, difficult to judge from my side, because I was always playing catch up, especially in the first two stints [where] I had to overtake cars at the beginning of my stints, which always compromises the tyre deg.
“Having to go on the marbles and use the tyre at the beginning of the stints, to use the peak of the tyre, rather than nursing it in, and then being fast in the second half of the stint.”
The Madrid-born driver did find competitiveness on the third stint with the mediums before they degraded too fast for his liking, meaning he could not attack Verstappen or Leclerc.
“The only positive was the third stint, quite quick with that medium, and then it degraded a bit too much at the end, which didn’t allow me to pass Max and Charles there at the end.”
Despite Charles Leclerc’s podium at Spa last year and the Spaniard’s rostrum appearance in 2022, the Belgian venue has not been particularly kind to the team since the Monegasque’s first Grand Prix win there in 2019.
Ferrari was miles off Red Bull’s pace last year, and it was even more disappointing in 2022 considering how strong their car had been pre-summer break.
The 3-time race winner is unsure how this weekend will go.
“[Spa] has always been one of our toughest tracks as a team. I think we’ve always struggled there in the last two years.
“At the same time, I feel like our low downforce rear wing might work a bit better this year, and we might be a bit more performing. So obviously, [we will] always [be] optimistic, [but] at the same time realistic.”
Finally, the 29-year-old admits it’s no surprise former team McLaren has passed Ferrari for P2 in the standings following the pace of both cars in recent events.
The Scuderia had looked very strong until Monaco, keeping in touch with Red Bull in the Constructors’ Championship, but it has been McLaren that has taken over as the sport’s leading team concerning car pace, moving ahead of the Italian giants and are quickly closing in on Red Bull.
“Yeah, I think it was a matter of time before McLaren would overtake us given its performance and our performance. So yeah, it happened.
“And it was pretty much an easy one-two for them, and we were P4 and P6 which is more or less where we’ve been the last three or four races. Now it’s time to get our heads down.
“It’s going to take a bit of time to bring a package that is able to fight McLaren. I don’t think we can bring it obviously for Spa or the first race after the summer break.
“But hopefully soon after that, we will come up with something that will close the gap and we can get back in the fight.”
The results of the Hungarian Grand Prix saw Ferrari slipping into third in the Constructors’ Championship, with McLaren ahead of them by 16 points.
