Carlos Sainz will be more “experimental” in future free practices after making improvements in qualifying in Saudi Arabia
Carlos Sainz said during the week that his Ferrari engineers have some “interesting theories” about why he was so clearly beaten by Charles Leclerc in the Formula One season opener in Bahrain, which they verified during the free practice sessions in Jeddah.
After his good performance in qualifying, Sainz says he will be more “experimental” on Fridays in the future as it allowed him to make some improvements in Jeddah. He said he had experimented a lot with the set-up in practice and felt “stronger than in Bahrain as a result, especially in qualifying”.
In Bahrain, Sainz’s second place behind teammate Leclerc made it a one-two finish for the Scuderia, but he was unhappy with his own performance throughout the weekend.
On his “worst weekend” since joining Ferrari, Sainz stressed that he must improve if he is to challenge for race wins in the future.
Although the Spaniard was again beaten by Leclerc in qualifying, he had the edge in Q1, Q2 as well as Q3 after the first attempt. In the third qualifying segment, Sainz was unable to improve on the second lap as Ferrari struggled to improve on fresh tyres over the used ones.
“I played around a lot with the set-up on Friday to get to know the car better and to be able to set it up more to my liking,” explained Sainz, who at the same time said that the experiments had paid off for qualifying.
“Now I just have to see if I can transfer this pace into the race, which should certainly be possible. I am happy with the progress we have made,” said Sainz.