Last Updated on March 6 2024, 4:09 pm
Carlos Sainz was the highest placed non red Bull driver at the Formula One season opener in Bahrain last week. His third place marked the improvement Ferrari have made after coming third behind Mercedes in last season’s constructors’ championship.
Sainz has been dumped by Ferrari at the end of this year following the company’s chairman – John Elkan – taking the executive decision above Fred Vasseur’s head to recruit Lewis Hamilton.
Sainz closely matched with Leclerc
Should the Spanish driver finish ahead of his team mate this year, in his four year tenure in Maranello he will have levelled the score of who scored the most points in a season to 2-2. Carlos was unfortunate last year not to finish the season ahead of Leclerc because at the penultimate race weekend in Las Vegas, where he looked the quicker Ferrari driver, he was hit with a ten place grid penalty following a man hole cover coming lose and partially destroying his car.
The in Abu Dhabi Carlos Ferrari failed again causing him to crash heavily in practice and need a complete rebuild. With the lost track time and a faulty rebuild, Sainz was unable to make it out of the first qualifying session and started the Grand Prix from the lowly slot of P16. This meant he failed to score points and his lead over team mate Leclerc which had been 22 points before the final two rounds became a 6 point deficit in favour of Charles Leclerc.
Following his podium in Bahrain last week, and his comments would have been warmly greeted by Lewis Hamilton who will be stepping into his car for 2025. “It’s a bit of a relief because the last race where I was attacking was Austria and we’re talking about 13, 14 races ago,” he told assembled media. “And then the rest of the races last year you just had to manage, look in the mirrors, control your pace. And there were very little opportunities to go and overtake people.”
Clearly Ferrari have made a huge step forward this year from their 2023 challenger which ate tyres meaning the drivers could not always drive flat out.
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Sainz says McLaren strong
“I love going racing, and I love going overtaking, being aggressive, attacking. And with last year’s car, it was simply impossible to do that. I remember at the car launch saying this year I wish we had a car to go racing and attack people and don’t care too much about the tyres.
“And it’s exactly what we got,” he added. “I got an attacking race, a really good race pace and from there everything felt really good to finish P3. I enjoyed it a lot.”
Having begun the day’s media duties each driver not attending the press conference is obliged to undertake, Sainz had explained to assembled media at the Ferrari hospitality that there was one team he thought would be particularly tough to beat this weekend in Jeddah.
The team he highlighted was McLaren who while being off the pace in Bahrain managed a double points finish ahead of the Aston Martin pair. Sainz believes this week in Saudi Arabia, McLaren will return to the form they showed from the Austrian GP onwards last season where they outscore Mercedes and Ferrari to the end of the year and Lando Norris scored more points than any other driver besides Max Verstappen.
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Sainz suddenly taken ill
Carlos believes the layout of the jeddah circuit will suit the MCL38 and McLaren may be Ferrari’s biggest challenger for the second spot behind the Red Bull team. “Let’s see the differences first,” Sainz said. “We go with this new 2024 car so it will be a bit of a surprise for everyone to see where we are.
“I expect the cars like the McLaren, last year they were very good in high speed circuits, to be competitive there but you know our car has also improved in the high speed so hopefully we can be also stronger.”
Mid stride Carlos was taken ill and left his media duties and Ferrari has since confirmed that the Spaniard is feeling “unwell” and has therefore returned to his hotel.
“Carlos is not feeling well and has gone back to the hotel,” his team confirmed. The team haven’t elaborated further, but the sudden nature of the illness must be of a concern for them and for Carlos who has just twelve hours to recover before he will be driving the car in free practice one.
McLaren bullish
Whilst not scheduled for the FIA press conference, Lando Norris concurred with Sainz view that the Jeddah Corniche Circuit should be a happier hunting ground for the McLaren MCL38.
“It’s a bit more high speed, a bit more medium speed, which normally suits us,” he said. “There’s still things we’re going to struggle with a lot.
“It’s also a track which maybe should suit us a bit more. So excited for it.
“Plenty of things for us to learn, because it’s so different this car than what we had last year. More challenges, more question marks but on the whole, I’m hoping it suits a little bit more.”
McLaren better start
This time last year Max Verstappen faced the first challenge to his supremacy as team mate Sergio Perez won the race in the desert. Lando Norris was PO15 with rookie team mate Oscar Piastri in P17 and McLaren left the Middle East after two rounds having failed to score a single point.
Perez was aided by Verstappen’s shock car troubles in qualifying two which saw the Dutch driver limp back to the pits with aa terminal problem which saw him start the race in P15.
Yet the Mexican was put on notice as to what was ahead on the year as Max Verstappen recovering from his starting position down the order, entered the top ten during lap eight at the expense of Zhou. He gained another place one lap later, passing Gasly, while Leclerc also continued to move forward, through passing Hamilton. Three laps later Verstappen managed to overtake Hamilton as well and one lap later he and Leclerc both passed Ocon.
By the end of the race Verstappen was just over five seconds behind the winner Perez having carved through the field with the new Red Bull DRS looking like a turbo charger.
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Carlos has a a food-related illness, he will not be a 100% but is still expected to be behind the weel of his Ferrari during FP1 & 2.