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Sainz believes Bahrain showed hints Ferrari can challenge Red Bull
Carlos Sainz says the signs from the Bahrain Grand Prix suggest Ferrari could have a chance of seriously challenging Red Bull at some circuits this season.
Max Verstappen cruised to victory in the season-opening race, leading home teammate Sergio Perez by over 22 seconds as Red Bull started with a one-two for the second consecutive year. However, Sainz says Bahrain is likely to be one of Red Bull’s strongest tracks and the fact he could put pressure on Perez despite some issues with his own car hints at a much closer performance gap at other venues.
"When I saw the long runs of Max and Checo in FP2 and then the long runs of testing, there's no secrets,” Sainz said. “We've been here three days. I knew they had a three-, four-tenth advantage -- maybe not half a second like George [Russell] was saying, depending on track conditions. But I knew it was going to be very difficult to beat the Red Bulls.
“They also kept a new soft, which shows a bit what the intentions and their plans were. So I knew the Red Bulls today were going to be very, very difficult to beat. So to keep up with one of them and have the possibility to fight is already a good surprise.
“I think we were at one of their strongest tracks of the season with very high tire deg at the rear. Hopefully when we go to a more front-limited track and maybe better tarmac, our car will come alive and we will be able to mount a better challenge on Max for the win.”
Sainz had to fight his way through into third place having run fifth in the early stages, and he says he also suffered with problems with his brakes like teammate Charles Leclerc.
“The first stint and the beginning of the second stint, whenever we were in traffic, we were having a lot of brake vibrations and the pedal at one point started to go long. So it was always a balancing act between, do I go for it and try to get rid of the dirty air and overtake people, or do I start saving my brakes because they're going to fail or something's going to happen?
“I started saving by moving a bit on the straight to cool the side that it was getting hotter and the vibration started to get better. And then I could start to make moves and move forward. But the start wasn't great, the brakes were still a bit of a limitation for a bit, and then once everything settled, I could do my pace, do my overtakes and go for the podium.”
Chris Medland
While studying Sports Journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Chris managed to talk his way into working at the British Grand Prix in 2008 and was retained for three years before joining ESPN F1 as Assistant Editor. After three further years at ESPN, a spell as F1 Editor at Crash Media Group was followed by the major task of launching F1i.com’s English-language website and running it as Editor. Present at every race since the start of 2014, he has continued building his freelance portfolio, working with international titles. As well as writing for RACER, his broadcast work includes television appearances on F1 TV and as a presenter and reporter on North America's live radio coverage on SiriusXM.
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