Carlos Sainz had a tough time last weekend in Baku. He finished fifth in both the revised Sprint and the Grand Prix proper, but he got nowhere near his teammate and podium finisher Charles Leclerc. Team principal Frédéric Vasseur saw his driver struggle with his confidence, which wasn’t helped by a spin at the first turn during Q1.
“Yeah, Carlos had a bit of confidence lacking this weekend from the beginning of the weekend, but I think it also came from the fact that he lost the car at lap 1, turn 1 in Q1 and he had to use a second set. It put him on the back foot of the quali, [because] he had just one set at the end of the quali.”
And even though a fourth place in Friday’s qualifying is nothing shameful, it bleaked in comparison to the pole position his teammate managed, and he was over 0.8s off.
In the Sprint he ended where he started, in fifth place. In the race he eventually lost one place to Fernando Alonso, but managed to keep Lewis Hamilton behind.
Vasseur was happy with the result, adding that the new format doesn’t help the drivers that aren’t on it right away.
“Now the lack of confidence came from the beginning. With this format, I think it is quite difficult to recover, because when you have FP1, FP2, FP3 drivers are able to build up the pace over the weekend. And with this weekend, if you don’t start with the right pace, you are a bit lost.
“But I think I am more than happy with the job done by Carlos this weekend, because even in this situation he is able to finish P5, to recover, and he had a decent pace in the race.”
After being penalised in Melbourne it was a second difficult weekend for the Spaniard in a row, but Vasseur remains confident in his driver, again praising him for a job well done.
“We know perfectly that on some occasions, that you have ups and downs, that is sport.
“I think that he was doing a very good job, even compared to Charles. In Melbourne, for example, and this weekend [it] was a bit more difficult. but the most important is to be able to do P5 and score good points.”
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari
