Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz will start tomorrow’s Austrian Grand Prix on the second row of the grid in a strong P4. Despite this, the Spaniard is unimpressed by the pace his car has shown over the last few races, citing issues through high speed corners that has hampered their lap time.
Sainz had a strong qualifying session, outqualifying teammate Charles Leclerc for the second time this weekend. The Monegasque will line up sixth on the grid after a huge snap of oversteer at turn nine saw him unable to improve.
Ever since the Scuderia achieved their double podium around Monaco, they have been surprisingly off the pace of Red Bull, McLaren and even Mercedes.
“A very tricky weekend.
“We seem to be struggling a little bit. We seem definitely to be a step behind Red Bull and McLaren. In the fight with Mercedes in the race, in the sprint and in quali I felt like maybe they had a bit the edge over us.
“But we did some changes going into quali that made maybe the car faster but also a bit more on the edge, and it was very tricky out there to put a lap together.
“But happy because we I think did a decent lap and we are in P4 which if you would have told me you before quali I would have taken it.
“We are still not at the level that we want to be, at the level of Red Bull and McLaren, and on top of that you add the fact that Mercedes has done a very good step then suddenly it looks like it’s a tricky situation.”
The latest of Ferrari’s upgrades has made the car extremely sensitive to bumps in high speed corners. An issue that has reared its head last time out in Spain as the traditional tracks that feature lost of fast corners are expected to plague Ferrari over the European leg of the season.
“In these high downforce long corner tracks, more normal, basically normal tracks, that we are still not at the level that we want to be.”
According to Sainz, his Ferrari is losing around a tenth to polesitter Max Verstappen in both turn seven and nine around the Red Bull Ring, both of which are high speed.
“I think it’s a combination of we’re not great in high speed corners, and at the same time we are bouncing which makes our high speed exaggeratedly slow.
“So here turn 7, turn 9 we get a tenth from Max in each of the corners, only in one corner, and it’s very difficult to crawl that back the rest of the track because we are almost equal in the slow speed.”
Sainz says the team does not to revisit the upgrade package in Barcelona, saying it’s working as expected in corners where bouncing is not an issue.
“No, I think we see it working in all the places where we have no bouncing, but then if you trigger bouncing in the high speed and you have to back off then maybe what you win in some places you lose in the other.
“And the more high speed content there is at a track obviously that trade goes towards being worse for that circuit because the more high speed you have the slower you are. So yeah, not ideal.
“But as I said the team is pushing flat out back at home to try and solve the issue and see how we can come back stronger in Silverstone.”
Nevertheless, the slow speed prowess Sainz illuded to proved to be useful in the Sprint as the Spaniard was able to use this to his benefit, keeping Lewis Hamilton behind during the low speed turns one and three, getting better exits and leaving the Mercedes behind, unable to close the gap and make a move before the next corner arrived.
Sainz will also start the race in the same Mercedes sandwich he found himself in on the sprint race grid. He will undoubtedly look to exploit his car’s speed through the low speed sections again tomorrow in the Grand Prix.
