Carlos Sainz Jr makes TROUBLING prediction about rest of Ferrari's season

Carlos Sainz during the 2023 Australian Grand Prix weekend — Photo: © LAT Images

Ferrari

Carlos Sainz makes TROUBLING prediction about rest of Ferrari's season

The Spaniard admitted the team's race pace from Canada may not translate to other tracks

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Monday 26 June 2023 09:57

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Carlos Sainz Jr. has admitted that, despite showing some impressive race pace in Canada at the last race, Ferrari will likely rely on track characteristics for their speed race to race.

Failure to properly deal with a wet qualifying session meant that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz both started in the back half of the grid, but both fought back on alternative strategies to finish fourth and fifth – Leclerc ending the race within 20 seconds of winner Max Verstappen.

The Prancing Horse's showing on the Sunday in Montreal was better than expected, with Red Bull's Helmut Marko even going as far as to call them the fastest car on the day.

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"I have to say, thank God Ferrari had to start so far back," he said. "Because they were actually the fastest on both compounds."

Tempering expectations

However, Carlos Sainz has moved to warn fans not to expect too much at the next race in Austria, saying that the car is still very inconsistent.

A number of teams, barring the dominant Red Bull, have found that different track layouts and temperatures have had a big impact on how they've performed so far this season. Ferrari have been no different, particularly when it comes to tyre performance.

"I think our pace in Austria will depend a lot also in the characteristics of the circuit. I think our pace varies a lot, depending on that.

"We’ve seen places like Monaco or Canada, we are stronger than places with higher speed corners like Barcelona where we struggled a bit more. So I think we will see variations in our competitiveness."