Sainz warns Ferrari must ACCEPT race failures this season

Carlos Sainz believes Ferrari must accept missing out on podium finishes this year provided they have extracted everything possible from their package.

Despite pushing Red Bull and Max Verstappen during the first half of last season, the Scuderia are now in the midst of a more challenging campaign, having slipped down the constructor's rankings and mustered up just three top-three finishes.

Sainz has missed out on the podium in every race to date, with Charles Leclerc often bettering his results, underlining the mixed performance of the SF-23.

And with Mercedes, Aston Martin and now McLaren tussling it out below the world champions, Ferrari face stern competition in their bid to rise up the standings.

As a result, Sainz believes they should measure their objectives accordingly and celebrate success when it comes, even if they fail to finish in the top spots.

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Sainz: Ferrari expected more

"It's been obviously relatively a frustrating start when we kind of realised that Red Bull was such a big step ahead of us and it was going to be difficult to challenge them," Sainz said.

"I think we all expected the car to be more competitive, ourselves to be more competitive and the field has got really, really tight.

"Now you're going through these massive up and downs where some weekends you might be fighting for P3 and others you're just finishing P8, which in performance swing just might mean you are 0.1s in front missing or 0.1s behind that tight field, which is not a lot.

"But the end result looks very different in Ferrari when you come back with a P3 or P8. And now we just need to kind of accept that's the fight that we are in

"If one weekend we need to go and fight for P5 and that's the maximum we can do, we need to celebrate the fact that we've done the maximum with what we have this year."

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