Carlos Sainz has spoken about where he feels he struggled in his season at Ferrari, saying he needed “a lot of free space” while racing to drive F1-75s.
Sainz arrived at Ferrari and overtook Charles Leclerc in the team last season, but the Monegasque has largely had the most productive things inside the Scuderia, having outplayed his teammate 14-4 so far and an overall record of 11-7 head. -Head-to-head race.
Leclerc converted just 3 of his nine poles into victories, while Sainz claimed his first Formula 1 victory at Silverstone earlier this year.
But although he gradually closed the gap to his teammate mid-season, Leclerc pulled away from Sainz in the drivers’ standings, with a 50-point lead over his Ferrari teammates ahead of the last 4 races.
Where Sainz struggled to start compared to his teammate, the Spaniard explained that the start was slow and he missed the maximum in the name race.
“Probably the beginning of the season,” Sainz told reporters in Austin when asked where his biggest fight this year had been.
– Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) October 21, 2022
“Those first six or seven races where the car was the maximum competitive, [Leclerc] would take the top positions and win the races, you know?
“Lately, obviously, I’ve had a lot more speed and I’m handling the car much better, but it’s also true that maybe the car is rarely very much at the point where the year starts, or let’s say Red Bull has redoubled its efforts and it’s not as simple to get a pole position or a win as it might have been at the beginning of the year.
“But obviously he did a bigger job for me this year, whether it’s driving and running the race and yes, he was more comfortable with the car than I was. And I’ve been in this fight all year looking to get to a similar point by the end. “year.
“Am I here? I don’t think so. I think I still have some things with this car that still don’t come naturally and I would like to replace a lot of things. “
“But yes, I’m now at a decent point where I’m convinced I can achieve smart effects and be consistent with that. speed immediately.
Given the difference in cars in 2022 with the advent of the new technical regulations, some took longer to update than others in the era of floor aerodynamics.
But when it comes to having to adjust his driving style, Sainz admitted he’s not sure what component he’s missing as he struggled to adapt to Leclerc from the start.
“I don’t know,” he said. There are only cars where you drive them and you know without even looking for the lap time, you know you did a smart lap and you know that there probably won’t be your teammate or anyone else passing faster than you.
“And then there are other cars where you think you set a smart lap time, but you know it probably wouldn’t be enough because you made mistakes here and there. And then there are cars that you have to think about while driving and there are cars that you drive naturally.
“And this year, while driving, I want to think a lot. I want a lot of area to know that this kind of spin, I have to do it like this, this kind of spin, I have to do it differently. “. And I’m sure hundredths, thousandths of a moment pass by as you think about the curve ahead.
“Okay, I can do it. I mean, I’ve been pretty fast lately, especially on one lap, but it’s still not ideal for a race driver. “
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